•• 

£•:  "•'• 


JOHN  H.  CADY,  68  YEARS,  SOLDIER  OF  FORTUNE,  ON  THE 
SONOITA,  DECEMBER,  1914 


ARIZONA'S  YESTERDAY 


BEING 

THE  NARRATIVE  OF 

JOHN  H.  CADY 

PIONEER 


Rewritten  and  Revised  by 

BASIL  DILLON  WOON 
1915 


Copyright,  1916, 
By  John  H.  Cady. 


u.  o. 

ACADEMY  OF 

PACIFIC  COAST 

HISTORY 


TO 

THE  PIONEERS  WHO  ARE  LIVING 


THE  MEMORIES  OF 
THOSE  WHO   ARE   DEAD 

this  book, 

in  affectionate  tribute  to  the  gallant  courage, 
rugged  independence  and  wonderful  endurance 
of  those  adventurous  souls  who  formed  the 
vanguard  of  civilization  in  the  early  history  of 
the  Territory  of  Arizona  and  the  remainder  of 
the  Great  West, 


is  dedicated. 


JOHN  H.  CADY 
BASIL  D.  WOON 

Patagonia, 

Arizona, 
Nineteen  -  Fifteen. 


PREFACE 

WHEN  I  first  broached  the  matter  of  writing 
his  autobiography  to  John  H.  Cady,  two 
things  had  struck  me  particularly.  One 
was  that  of  all  the  literature  about  Arizona  there 
was  little  that  attempted  to  give  a  straight,  chrono 
logical  and  intimate  description  of  events  that  oc 
curred  during  the  early  life  of  the  Territory,  and, 
second,  that  of  all  the  men  I  knew,  Cady  was  best 
fitted,  by  reason  of  his  extraordinary  experiences, 
remarkable  memory  for  names  and  dates,  and  senior 
ity  in  pioneership,  to  supply  the  work  that  I  felt 
lacking. 

Some  years  ago,  when  I  first  came  West,  I  hap 
pened  to  be  sitting  on  the  observation  platform  of 
a  train  bound  for  the  orange  groves  of  Southern 
California.  A  lady  with  whom  I  had  held  some 
slight  conversation  on  the  journey  turned  to  me 
after  we  had  left  Tucson  and  had  started  on  the 
long  and  somewhat  dreary  journey  across  the  desert 
that  stretches  from  the  "Old  Pueblo"  to  "San  Ber- 
doo,"  and  said : 

"Do  you  know,  I  actually  used  to  believe  all  those 
stories  about  the  'wildness  of  the  West.'  I  see  how 
badly  I  was  mistaken." 

She  had  taken  a  half-hour  stroll  about  Tucson 
while  the  train  changed  crews  and  had  been  im 
pressed  by  the — to  the  casual  observer — sleepiness 


6  ARIZONA'S  YESTERDAY 

of  the  ancient  town.  She  told  me  that  never  again 
would  she  look  on  a  "wild  West"  moving  picture 
without  wanting  to  laugh.  She  would  not  believe 
that  there  had  ever  been  a  "wild  West" — at  least, 
not  in  Arizona.  And  yet  it  is  history  that  the  old 
Territory  of  Arizona  in  days  gone  by  was  the 
"wildest  and  woolliest"  of  all  the  West,  as  any  old 
settler  will  testify. 

There  is  no  doubt  that  to  the  tourist  the  West  is 
now  a  source  of  constant  disappointment.  The 
"movies"  and  certain  literature  have  educated  the 
Easterner  to  the  belief  that  .even  now  Indians  go  on 
the  war-path  occasionally,  that  even  now  cow-boys 
sometimes  find  an  outlet  for  their  exuberant  spirits 
in  the  hair-raising  sport  of  "shooting  up  the  town," 
and  that  even  now  battles  between  the  law-abiding 
cattlemen  and  the  "rustlers"  are  more  or  less  fre 
quent.  When  these  people  come  west  in  their  com 
fortable  Pullmans  and  discover  nothing  more  inter 
esting  in  the  shape  of  Indians  than  a  few  old  squaws 
selling  trinkets  and  blankets  on  station  platforms,  as 
at  Ytaia;  when  they  visit  one  of  the  famous  old 
towns  where  in  days  gone  by  white  men  were  wont 
to  sleep  with  one  eye  and  an  ear  open  for  marauding 
Indians,  and  find  electric  cars,  modern  office  build 
ings,  paved  streets  crowded  with  luxurious  motors, 
and  the  inhabitants  nonchalantly  pursuing  the  even 
tenor  of  their  ways  garbed  in  habiliments  strongly 
suggestive  of  Forty- fourth  street  and  Broadway; 
when  they  come  West  and  note  these  signs  of  an 


V 

PREFACE  7 

advancing  and  all-conquering  civilization,  I  say, 
they  invariably  are  disappointed.  One  lady  I  met 
even  thought  "how  delightful"  it  would  be  "if  the 
Apaches  would  only  hold  up  the  train!"  It  failed 
altogether  to  occur  to  her  that,  in  the  days  when 
wagon-trains  were  held  up  by  Apaches,  few  of  those 
in  them  escaped  to  tell  the  gruesome  tale.  And  yet 
this  estimable  lady,  fresh  from  the  drawing-rooms 
of  Upper-Radcliffe-on-the-Hudson  and  the  ballroom 
of  Rector's,  thought  how  "delightful"  this  would 
be!  Ah,  fortunate  indeed  is  it  that  the  pluck  and 
persistence  of  the  pioneers  carved  a  way  of  peace 
for  the  pilgrims  of  today ! 

Considering  the  foregoing,  such  a  book  as  this, 
presenting  as  it  does  in  readable  form  the  Arizona 
West  as  it  really  was,  is,  in  my  opinion,  most  oppor 
tune  and  fills  a  real  need.  The  people  have  had 
fiction  stories  from  the  capable  pens  of  Stewart  Ed 
ward  White  and  his  companions  in  the  realm  of 
western  literature,  and  have  doubtless  enjoyed  their 
refreshing  atmosphere  and  daring  originality,  but, 
despite  this,  fiction  localized  in  the  West  and  founded 
however-much  on  fact,  does  not  supply  all  the  needs 
of  the  Eastern  reader,  who  demands  the  truth  about 
those  old  days,  presented  in  a  compact  and  intimate 
form.  I  cannot  too  greatly  emphasize  that  word 
"intimate,"  for  it  signifies  to  me  the  quality  that  has 
been  most  lacking  in  authoritative  works  on  the 
Western  country. 

When  I  first  met  Captain  Cady  I  found  him  the 


8  ARIZONA'S  YESTERDAY 

very  personification  of  what  he  ought  not  to  have 
been,  considering  the  fact  that  he  is  one  of  the  oldest 
pioneers  in  Arizona.  Instead  of  peacefully  awaiting 
the  close  of  a  long  and  active  career  in  some  old 
soldiers'  home,  I  found  him  energetically  superin 
tending  the  hotel  he  owns  at  Patagonia,  Santa  Cruz 
county — and  wiith  a  badly  burned  hand,  at  that. 
There  he  was,  with  a  characteristic  chef's  top-dress 
on  him  (Cady  is  well  known  as  a  first-class  cook), 
standing  behind  the  wood-fire  range  himself,  per 
mitting  no  one  else  to  do  the  cooking,  allowing  no 
one  else  to  shoulder  the  responsibilities  that  he,  as  a 
man  decidedly  in  the  autumn  of  life,  should  by  all 
the  rules  of  the  "game"  have  long  since  relinquished. 
Where  this  grizzled  old  Indian  fighter,  near  his 
three-sco re-and-ten,  should  have  been  white-haired, 
he  was  but  gray;  where  he  should  have  been  inflicted 
with  the  kindred  illnesses  of  advancing  old  age  he 
simply  owned  up,  and  sheepishly  at  that,  to  a  burned 
hand.  Where  he  should  have  been  willing  to  lay 
down  his  share  of  civic  responsibility  and  let  the 
"young  fellows"  have  a  go  at  the  game,  he  w&s  as 
ever  on  the  firing-line,  his  name  in  the  local  paper  a 
half-dozen  times  each  week.  Oh,  no,  it  is  wrong  to 
say  that  John  H.  Cady  was  a  fighter — wrong  in  the 
spirit  of  it,  for,  you  see,  he  is  very  much  of  a  fighter, 
now.  He  has  lost  not  one  whit  of  that  aggressive 
ness  and  sterling  courage  that  he  always  has  owned, 
the  only  difference  being  that,  instead  of  fighting 
Indians  and  bad  men,  he  is  now  fighting  the  forces 


PREFACE  9 

of  evil  within  his  own  to  win  and  contesting,  as  well, 
the  grim  advances  made  by  the  relentless  Reaper. 

In  travels  that  have  taken  me  over  a  good  slice 
of  Mother  Earth,  and  that  have  brought  me  into 
contact  with  all  sorts  and  conditions  of  men,  I  have 
never  met  one  whose  friendship  I  would  rather  have 
than  that  of  John  H.  Cady.  If  I  were  asked  to  sum 
him  up  I  would  say  that  he  is  a  true  man — a  true 
father,  a  true  and  courageous  fighter,  and  a  true 
American.  He  is  a  man  anybody  would  far  sooner 
have  with  him  than  against  him  in  a  controversy. 
If  so  far  as  world-standards  go  he  has  not  achieved 
fame — I  had  rather  call  it  "notoriety" — it  is  because 
of  the  fact  that  the  present-day  standards  do  not  fit 
the  men  whom  they  ignore.  With  those  other  men 
who  were  the  wet-nurses  of  the  West  in  its  infantile 
civilization,  this  hardy  pioneer  should  be  honored 
by  the  present  generation  and  his  name  handed 
down  to  posterity  as  that  of  one  who  fought  the 
good  fight  of  progress,  and  fought  well,  with 
weapons  which  if  perhaps  crude  and  clumsy — as  the 
age  was  crude  and  clumsy  judged  by  Twentieth 
Century  standards — were  at  least  most  remarkably 
effective. 

The  subject  of  this  autobiography  has  traveled 
to  many  out  of  the  way  places  and  accomplished 
many  remarkable  things,  but  the  most  astonishing 
thing  about  him  is  the  casual  and  unaffected  way  in 
which  he,  in  retrospect,  views  his  extraordinarily 
active  life,  He  talks  to  me  as  unconcernedly  of 


10  ARIZONA'S  YESTERDAY 

tramping  hundreds  of  miles  across  a  barren  desert 
peopled  with  hostile  Indians  as  though  it  were 
merely  a  street-car  trip  up  the  thoroughfares  of  one 
of  Arizona's  progressive  cities.  He  talks  of  des 
perate  rides  through  a  wild  and  dangerous  country, 
of  little  scraps,  as  he  terms  them,  with  bands  of  mur 
derous  Apaches,  of  meteoric  rises  from  hired  hand 
to  ranch  foreman,  of  adventurous  expeditions  into 
the  realm,  of  trade  when  everything  was  a  risk  in  a 
land  of  uncertainty,  of  journeys  through  a  foreign 
and  wild  country  "dead  broke" — of  these  and  many 
similar  things,  as  though  they  were  commonplace 
incidents  scarcely  worthy  of  mention. 

Yet  the  story  of  Cady's  life  is,  I  venture  to  state, 
one  of  the  most  gripping  and  interesting  ever  told, 
both  from  an  historical  and  from  a  human  point  of 
view.  It  illustrates  vividly  the  varied  fortunes  en 
countered  by  an  adventurous  pioneer  of  the  old  days 
in  Arizona  and  contains,  besides,  historical  facts  not 
before  recorded  that  cannot  help  making  the  work 
of  unfailing  interest  to  all  who  know,  or  wish  to 
know,  the  State. 

For  you,  then,  reader,  who  love  or  wish  to  know 
the  State  of  Arizona,  with  its  painted  deserts,  its 
glorious  skies,  its  wlonderful  mountains,  its  magical 
horizons,  its  illimitable  distances,  its  romantic  past 
and  its  magnificent  possibilities,  this  little  book  has 
been  written. 

BASIL  DILLON  WOON. 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

THE  BOY  SOLDIER 13 

FOLLOWING  THE  ARGONAUTS 17 

ROUGH  AND  TUMBLE  ON  LAND  AND  SEA 37 

THROUGH  MEXICO  AND  BACK  TO  ARIZONA.  ...   50 

STAGE  DRIVER'S  LUCK 61 

A  FRONTIER  BUSINESS  MAN 71 

VENTURES  AND  ADVENTURES 80 

INDIAN  WARFARE 92 

DEPUTY  SHERIFF,  CATTLEMAN  AND  FARMER.  .  .  102 
IN  AGE  THE  CRICKET  CHIRPS  AND  BRINGS — .  .115 

ILLUSTRATIONS 

JOHN  H.  CADY Frontispiece 

OLD  BARRACKS  IN  TUCSON 20 

RUINS  OF  FORT  BUCHANAN 28 

CADY'S  HOUSE  ON  THE  SONOITA 44 

RUINS  OF  FORT  CRITTENDEN 60 

THE  OLD  WARD  HOMESTEAD 76 

SHEEP  CAMP  ON  THE  SONOITA 92 

CADY  AND  HIS  FAMILY..  .108 


ARIZONA'S  YESTERDAY 


THE  BOY  SOLDIER 

"For  the  right  that  needs  assistance, 
For  the  wrong  that  needs  resistance, 
For  the  future  in  the  distance, 
And  the  good  that  they  could  do." 

FOURTEEN  years  before  that  broad,  bloody 
line  began  to  be  drawn  between  the  North 
and  the  South  of  the  "United  States  of 
America,"  before  there  came  the  terrific  clash  of 
steel  and  muscle  in  front  of  which  the  entire  world 
retreated  to  a  distance,  horrified,  amazed,  fascinated 
and  confounded;  before  there  came  the  dreadful  day 
when  families  were  estranged  and  birthrights  sur 
rendered,  loves  sacrificed  and  the  blight  of  the  bullet 
placed  on  hundreds  of  thousands  of  sturdy  hearts— 
fourteen  years  before  this,  on  the  banks  of  the 
mighty  Ohio  at  Cincinnati,  I  was  born,  on  Septem 
ber  15,  1846.  My  parents  were  John  N.  Cady,  of 
Cincinnati,  and  Maria  Clingman  Cady,  who  was  of 
German  descent,  and  of  whom  I  remember  little 
owing  to  the  fact  that  she  died  when  I  reached  my 
third  birthday. 

Ah,  Cincinnati!     To  me  you  shall  always  be  my 
City  of  Destiny,  for  it  was  within  your  boundaries 


14  ARIZONA'S  YESTERDAY 

that  I,  boy  and  man,  met  my  several  fates.  One  sent 
me  through  the  turmoil  and  suffering  of  the  Civil 
War;  another  sent  me  westward  mounted  on  the 
wings  of  youthful  hope  and  ambition.  For  that 
alone  I  am  ever  in  the  debt  of  Ohio's  fairest  city, 
which  I  hope  to  see  again  some  day  before  there 
sounds  for  me  the  Taps.  .:  .  .  But  I  do  not 
know.  The  tide  of  life  is  more  than  past  its  ebb  for 
me  and  I  should  be  thinking  more  of  a  quiet  rest  on 
the  hillside,  my  face  turned  to  the  turquoise  blue  of 
Arizona's  matchless  infinity,  than  to  the  treading 
again  of  noisy  city  streets  in  the  country  of  my 
birth. 

But  this  is  to  be  a  story  of  Arizona,  and  I  must 
hasten  through  the  events  that  occurred  prior  to  my 
leaving  for  the  West.  When  I  had  reached  three 
years  of  age  my  father  married  again — a  milliner — 
and  moved  to  Philadelphia.  My  grandmother,  who 
had  raised  me  practically  from  birth,  removed  with 
me  to  Maysville  in  Kentucky,  where  I  was  sent  to 
school.  Some  of  my  pleasantest  memories  now  are 
of  that  period  in  the  old-fashioned  Kentucky  river 
town. 

Just  after  my  ninth  birthday  my  father  came  back 
to  Maysville,  claimed  me,  took  me  to  Philadelphia 
with  him  and  afterwards  turned  me  over  to'one  Wil 
liam  Turner,  his  wife's  brother,  who  was  the  owner 
of  a  farm  on  the  eastern  shore  of  Maryland.  I 
stayed  at  the  Turner  farm  until  the  outbreak  of  the 
Civil  War  in  the  fall  of  '61,  when  my  father,  who 


THE  BOY  SOLDIER  15 

was  then  working  for  Devlin  &  Son,  clothiers,  with 
headquarters  at  Broadway  and  Warren  streets,  New 
York  City,  enlisted  in  Duryea's  Zouaves  as  orderly 
sergeant  in  Company  K.  The  Zouaves  wintered  at 
Federal  Hill,  Baltimore,  and  I  joined  my  father  and 
the  regiment  there.  In  the  spring  we  moved  to 
Washington,  joining  there  the  great  Army  of  the 
Potomac,  with  which  we  stayed  during  that  army's 
succession  of  magnificent  battles,  until  after  the 
Fredericksburg  fight  in  '63. 

In  Washington  we  were  quartered  at  Arlington 
Heights  and  I  remember  that  I  used  to  make  pocket 
money  by  buying  papers  at  the  Washington  railway 
depot  and  selling  them  on  the  Heights.  The  papers 
were,  of  course,  full  of  nothing  but  war  news,  some 
of  them  owing  their  initial  publication  to  the  war, 
so  great  was  the  public's  natural  desire  for  news  of 
the  titanic  struggle  that  was  engulfing  the  continent. 
Then,  as  now,  there  were  many  conflicting  state 
ments  as  to  the  movements  of  troops,  and  so  forth, 
but  the  war  correspondents  had  full  rein  to  write  as 
they  pleased,  and  the  efforts  of  some  of  them  stand 
out  in  my  memory  today  as  marvels  of  word-paint 
ing  and  penned  rhetoric. 

When  Grant  took  command  of  the  Army  of  the 
Potomac  I  left  the  army,  three  or  four  days  before 
reinforcements  for  General  Sherman,  w'ho  was  then 
making  preparations  for  his  famous  "march  to  the 
sea,"  left  for  Kentucky.  At  Aguire  Creek,  near 
Washington,  I  purchased  a  cargo  of  apples  for 


16  ARIZONA'S  YESTERDAY 

$900 — my  first  of  two  exceedingly  profitable  ven 
tures  in  the  apple-selling  industry — and,  after  sell 
ing  thenr  at  a  handsome  profit,  followed  Sherman's 
reinforcements  as  far  as  Cincinnati.  I  did  not  at 
this  time  stay  long  in  the  city  of  my  birth,  going  in 
a  few  days  to  Camp  Nelson,  Ky.,  where  I  obtained 
work  driving  artillery  horses  to  Atlanta  and  bring 
ing  back  to  Chattanooga  condemned  army  stock. 
Even  at  that  time — 1864 — the  proud  old  city  of  At 
lanta  felt  the  shadow  of  its  impending  doom,  but 
few  believed  Sherman  would  go  to  the  lengths  he 
did. 

After  the  close  of  the  war  in  1865  I  enlisted  in 
Cincinnati,  on  October  12,  in  the  California  Rocky 
Mountain  service.  Before  this,  however,  I  had 
shipped  in  the  Ram  Vindicator  of  the  Mississippi 
Squadron  and  after  being  transferred  to  the  gun 
boat  Syren  had  helped  move  the  navy  yard  from 
Mound  City,  111.,  to  Jefferson  Barracks,  St.  Louis, 
Mo.,  where  it  still  is. 

I  was  drafted  in  the  First  United  States  Cavalry 
and  sent  to  Carlisle  Barracks  in  Pennsylvania,  from 
which  place  I  traveled  to  New  Orleans,  where  I 
joined  my  regiment.  I  was  allotted  to  Company  C 
and  remember  my  officers  to  have  been  Captain 
Dean,  First  Lieutenant  Vail  and  Second  Lieutenant 
Winters.  Soon  after  my  arrival  in  New  Orleans  we 
commenced  our  journey  to  California,  then  the 
golden  country  of  every  man's  dreams  and  the 
Mecca  of  every  man's  ambition. 


FOLLOWING  THE  ARGONAUTS 

So  it's  Westward  Ho!  for  the  land  of  worth, 

Where  the  "is,"  not  uzvas"  is  vital; 

Where  brawn  for  praise  must  win  the  earth, 

Nor  risk  its  new-born  title. 

Where  to  damn  a  man  is  to  say  he  ran, 

And  heedless  seeds  are  sown, 

Where  the  thrill  of  strife  is  the  spice  of  life, 

And  the  creed  is  "GUARD  YOUR  OWN  !" 

— WOON. 

WHEN  the  fast  mail  steamer  which  had  car 
ried  us  from  the  Isthmus  of  Panama  (we 
had  journeyed  to  the  Isthmus  from  New 
Orleans  in  the  little  transport  McClellan),  steamed 
through  the  Golden  Gate  and  anchored  off  the  Pre 
sidio  I  looked  with  great  eagerness  and  curiosity  on 
the  wonderful  city  known  in  those  days  as  "the 
toughest  hole  on  earth,"  of  which  I  had  read  and 
heard  so  much  and  which  I  had  so  longed  to  see.  I 
saw  a  city  rising  on  terraces  from  the  smooth 
waters  of  a  glorious  bay  whose  wavelets  were  tem 
pered  by  a  sunshine  that  was  as  brilliant  as  it  was 
ineffective  against  the  keen  sea-breeze  of  winter. 
The  fog  that  had  obscured  our  sight  outside  the 
Golden  Gate  was  now  gone — vanished  like  the  mist- 
wraiths  of  the  long-ago  philosophers,  and  the  glo 
rious  city  of  San  Francisco  was  revealed  to  view. 


18  ARIZONA'S  YESTERDAY 

I  say  "glorious,"  but  the  term  must  be  understood 
to  apply  only  to  the  city's  surroundings,  which  were 
in  truth  magnificent.  She  looked  like  some  imperial 
goddess,  her  forehead  encircled  by  the  faint  band  of 
mist  that  still  lingered  caressingly  to  the  mountain 
tops,  her  countenance  glistening  with  the  dew  on 
the  green  hill-slopes,  her  garments  quaintly  fash 
ioned  for  her  by  the  civilization  that  had  brought 
her  into  being,  her  slippers  the  lustrous  waters  of 
the  Bay  itself.  Later  I  came  to  know  that  she,  too, 
was  a  goddess  of  moods,  and  dangerous  moods; 
a  coquette  to  some,  a  love  to  others,  and  to  many  a 
heartless  vampire  that  sucked  from  them  their  hard- 
wrung  dust,  scattered  their  gold  to  the  four  winds 
of  avarice  that  ever  circled  enticingly  about  the  vor 
tex  of  shallow  joys  that  the  City  harbored,  and, 
after  intoxicating  them  with  her  beauty  and  her 
wine,  flung  them  aside  to  make  ready  for  the  next 
comer.  Too  well  had  San  Francisco  merited  the 
title  I  give  it  in  the  opening  lines  of  this  chapter. 
Some  say  that  the  earthquake  and  the  fire  came  like 
vitriol  cast  on  the  features  of  a  beautiful  woman  for 
the  prostitution  of  her  charms;  but  I,  who  lost  little 
to  her  lures,  am  not  one  to  judge. 

My  memories  of  San  Francisco  are  at  any  rate 
a  trifle  hazy  now,  for  it  is  many,  many  years  since  I 
last  saw  the  sun  set  over  the  Marin  hills.  An  era 
has  passed  since  the  glamour  of  the  Coast  of  High 
Barbaree  claimed  my  youthful  attention.  But  I 
remember  a  city  as  evil  within  as  it  was  lovely  with- 


FOLLOWING  THE  ARGONAUTS  19 

out,  a  city  where  were  gathered  the  very  dregs  of 
humanity  from  the  four  corners  of  the  earth.  What 
Port  Said  is  now,  San  Francisco  was  then,  only 
worse.  For  every  crime  that  is  committed  in  the 
dark  alleys  of  the  Suez  port  or  the  equally  murky 
callejons  of  the  pestholes  of  Mexico,  four  were  com 
mitted  in  the  beautiful  Californian  town  when  I  first 
went  there.  Women  as  well  as  men  carried  "hard 
ware"  strapped  outside,  and  scarcely  one  who  had 
not  at  some  time  found  this  precaution  useful.  The 
city  abounded  with  footpads  and  ruffians  of  every 
nationality  and  description,  wlhose  prices  for  cutting 
a  throat  or  "rolling  a  stiff"  depended  on  the  cupidity 
of  the  moment  or  on  the  quantity  of  liquor  their 
capacious  stomachs  held.  Scores  of  killings  occurred 
and  excited  little  comment. 

Thousands  of  men  were  daily  passing  in  and  out 
of  the  city,  drawn  by  the  lure  of  the  Sierra  gold- 
fields;  some  of  these  came  back  with  the  joy  of 
dreams  come  true  and  full  pokes  hung  around  their 
necks,  some  came  with  the  misery  of  utter  failure  in 
their  hearts,  and  some — alas,  they  were  many,  re 
turned  not  at  all. 

The  Barbary  Coast  was  fast  gaining  for  itself  an 
unenviable  reputation  throughout  the  world.  Every 
time  one  walked  on  Pacific  street  with  any  money  in 
pocket  he  took  his  life  in  his  hand.  "Guard  Your 
Own!"  was  the  accepted  creed  of  the  time  and  woe 
to  him  who  could  not  do  so.  Gold  was  thrown 
about  like  water.  The  dancing  girls  made  fabulous 


20  ARIZONA'S  YESTERDAY 

sums  as  commissions  on  drinks  their  consorts  could 
be  persuaded  to  buy.  Hundreds  of  thousands  of  dol 
lars  were  spent  nightly  in  the  great  temples  devoted 
to  gambling,  and  there  men  risked  on  the  luck  of  a 
moment  or  the  turn  of  a  painted  wheel  fortunes 
wrung  from  the  soil  by  months  and  sometimes  years 
of  terrific  work  in  the  diggings.  The  most  famous 
gamblers  of  the  West  at  that  time  made  their  head 
quarters  in  San  Francisco,  and  they  came  from  all 
countries.  England  contributed  not  a  few  of  these 
gentlemen  traders  in  the  caprices  of  fortune,  France 
her  quota,  Germany  very  few  and  China  many;  but 
these  last  possessed  the  dives,  the  lowest  kind  of 
gambling  places,  where  men  went  only  when  they 
were  desperate  and  did  not  care. 

We  were  not  at  this  time,  however,  to  be  given  an 
opportunity  to  see  as  much  of  San  Francisco  as  most 
of  us  would  have  liked.  After  a  short  stay  at  the 
Presidio  we  were  sent  to  Wilmington,  then  a  small 
port  in  the  southern  part  of  the  State  but  now  incor 
porated  in  the  great  city  of  Los  Angeles.  Here  we 
drew  our  horses  for  the  long  trek  across  the  desert 
to  our  future  home  in  the  Territory  of  Arizona. 
There  was  no  railroad  at  that  time  in  California,  the 
line  not  even  having  been  surveyed  as  far  as  San 
Jose,  which  was  already  a  city  but,  instead  of  being, 
as  now,  the  market-place  for  a  dozen  fertile  and 
beautiful  valleys,  she  was  then  merely  an  outfitting 
point  for  parties  of  travelers,  prospectors,  cattlemen 


FOLLOWING  THE  ARGONAUTS  21 

and  the  like,  and  was  also  a  station  and  terminus  for 
various  stage  lines. 

Through  San  Jose,  too,  came  those  of  the  gold- 
seekers,  bound  for  the  high  Sierras  on  the  border 
of  the  desert,  w)ho  had  not  taken  the  Sacramento 
River  route  and  had  decided  to  brave  instead  the 
dangers  of  the  trail  through  the  fertile  San  Joaquin, 
up  to  the  Feather  River  and  thus  into  the  diggings 
about  Virginia  City.  Gold  had  been  found  by  that 
time  in  Nevada  and  hundreds  of  intrepid  men  were 
facing  the  awful  Mojave  and  Nevada  deserts, 
blazing  hot  in  day-time  and  icy  cold  at  night,  to 
seek  the  new  Eldorados.  Since  this  is  a  book  about 
pioneers,  and  since  I  am  one  of  them,  it  is  fitting  to 
stay  awhile  and  consider  what  civilization  owes  to 
these  daring  souls  who  formed  the  vanguard  of  her 
army.  Cecil  Rhodes  opened  an  Empire  by  mobilizing 
a  black  race;  Jim  Hill  opened  another  when  he  struck 
westward  with  steel  rails.  But  the  pioneers  of  the 
early  gold  rushes  created  an  empire  of  immense 
riches  with  no  other  aid  than  their  own  gnarled 
hands  and  sturdy  hearts.  They  opened  up  a  country 
as  vast  as  it  w&s  rich,  and  wrested  from  the  very 
bosom  of  Mother  Earth  treasures  that  had  been  in 
her  jealous  keeping  for  ages  before  the  era  of  Man. 
They  braved  sudden  death,  death  from  thirst  and 
starvation,  death  from  prowling  savages,  death 
from  the  wild  creatures, — all  that  the  works  of  man 
might  flourish  where  they  had  not  feared  to  tread. 


22  ARIZONA'S  YESTERDAY 

It  is  the  irony  of  fate  that  these  old  pioneers, 
many  of  whom  hated  civilization  and  were  fleeing 
from  her  guiles,  should  have  been  the  advance- 
guard  of  the  very  Power  they  sought  to  avoid. 

The  vast  empire  of  Western  America  is  strewn 
with  the  bones  of  these  men.  Some  of  them  lie  in 
kindly  resting  places,  the  grass  over  their  graves 
kept  green  by  loving  friends;  some  lie  uncared  for 
in  potters'  fields  or  in  the  cemeteries  of  homes  for 
the  aged,  and  some — a  vast  ho>rde — still  lie  bleached 
and  grim,  the  hot  sand  drifted  over  them  by  the 
desert  winds. 

But,  wherever  they  lie,  all  honor  to  the  pioneer! 
There  should  be  a  day  set  apart  on  which  every 
American  should  revere  the  memory  of  those  men 
of  long  ago  who  hewed  the  way  for  the  soft  paths 
that  fall  to  the  generation  of  today. 

What  San  Bernardino  is  now  to  the  west-bound 
traveler,  Wilmington  was  then — the  end  of  the  des 
ert.  From  Wilmington  eastward  stretched  one  tre 
mendous  ocean  of  sand,  interspersed  here  and  there 
by  majestic  mountains  in  the  fastnesses  of  which 
little  fertile  valleys  with  clear  mountain  streams 
were  to  be  discovered  later  by  the  pioneer  home 
steaders.  Where  now  are  miles  upon  miles  of  yel 
low-fruited  orange  and  lemon  groves,  betraying  the 
care  and  knowledge  of  a  later  generation  of  scien 
tific  farmers,  were  then  only  dreary,  barren  wastes, 
with  only  the  mountains  and  clumps  of  sagebrush, 


FOLLOWING  THE  ARGONAUTS  23 

soapweed,  cacti,  creosote  bushes  and  mesquite  to 
break  the  everlasting  monotony  of  the  prospect. 

Farming  then,  indeed,  was  almost  as  little  thought 
of  as  irrigation,  for  men's  minds  were  fixed  on  the 
star  of  whitest  brilliancy1 — Gold.  Men  even  made 
fortunes  in  the  diggings  and  returned  East  and 
bought  farms,  never  realizing  that  what  might  be 
pushed  above  the  soil  of  California  was  destined  to 
prove  of  far  greater  consequence  than  anything  men 
would  ever  find  hidden  beneath. 

The  march  to  Arizona  was  both  difficult  and  dan 
gerous,  and  was  to  be  attempted  safely  only  by  large 
parties.  Water  was  scarce  and  wells  few  and  far 
between,  and  there  were  several  stretches  as,  for 
instance,  that  between  what  are  now  known  as  the 
Imperial  Mountains  and  Yuma,  of  more  than  sixty 
miles  with  no  water  at  all.  The  well  at  Dos  Palmas 
was  not  dug  until  a  later  date.  Across  these 
stretches  the  traveler  had  to  depend  on  what  water 
he  could  manage  to  pack  in  a  canteen  strung  around 
his  waist  or  on  his  horse  or  mule.  On  the  march 
were  often  to  be  seen,  as  they  are  still,  those  won 
derful  desert  mirages  of  which  so  much  has  been 
written  by  explorers  and  scientists.  Sometimes 
these  took  the  form  of  lakes,  fringed  with  palms, 
which  tantalized  and  ever  kept  mockingly  at  a  dis 
tance.  Many  the  desert  traveler  who  has  been 
cruelly  deceived  by  these  mirages! 

Yuma,  of  which  I  have  just  spoken,  is  famed  for 
many  reasons.  For  one  thing,  the  story  that  United 


24  ARIZONA'S  YESTERDAY 

States  army  officers  "raised  the  temperature  of  the 
place  thirty  degrees"  to  be  relieved  from  duty  there, 
has  been  laughed  at  wherever  Americans  have  been 
wont  to  congregate.  And  that  old  story  told  by 
Sherman,  of  the  soldier  who  died  at  Yuma  after 
living  a  particularly  vicious  existence  here  below, 
and  who  soon  afterwards  telegraphed  from;  Hades 
for  his  blankets,  has  also  done  much  to  heighten  the 
reputation  of  the  little  city,  which  sometimes  still 
has  applied  to  it  the  distinction  of  being  the  hottest 
place  in  the  United  States.  This,  however,  is 
scarcely  correct,  as  many  places  in  the  Southwest — 
Needles  in  California,  and  the  Imperial  Valley  are 
examples — have  often  demonstrated  higher  temper 
atures  than  have  ever  been  known  at  Yuma.  A  sum 
mer  at  the  little  Colorado  River  town  is  quite  hot 
enough,  however,  to  please  the  most  tropical  sav 
age.  It  may  be  remarked  here,  in  justice  to  the  rest 
of  the  State,  that  the  temperature  of  Yuma  is  not 
typical  of  Arizona  as  a  whole.  In  the  region  I  now 
live  in — the  Sonoita  Valley  in  the  southeastern  part 
of  the  State,  and  in  portions  around  Prescott,  the 
summer  temperatures  are  markedly  cool  and  tem 
perate. 

Yuma,  however,  is  not  famed  for  its  temperature 
alone;  in  fact,  that  feature  of  its  claim  to  notice  is 
least  to  be  considered.  The  real  noteworthy  fact 
about  Yuma  from  a  historical  point  of  view  is  that, 
as  Arizona  City,  it  was  one  of  the  earliest-settled 
points  in  the  Territory  and  was  at  first  easily  the 


FOLLOWING  THE  ARGONAUTS  25 

most  important.  The  route  of  the  major  portion  of 
the  Forty-Niners  took  them  across  the  Colorado 
River  where  Fort  Yuma  was  situated  on  the  Cali 
fornia  side;  and  the  trend  of  exploration,  business 
and  commerce  a  few  years  later  flowed  westward  to 
Yuma  over  the  picturesque  plains  of  the  Gadsden 
Purchase.  The  famous  California  Column  ferried 
itself  across  the  Colorado  at  Yuma,  and  later  on  the 
Overland  Mail  came  through  the  settlement.  It  is 
now  a  division  point  on  the  Southern  Pacific  Rail 
way,  just  across  the  line  from  California,  and  has  a 
population  of  three  or  four  thousand. 

At  the  time  I  first  saw  the  place  there  was  only 
Fort  Yuma,  on  the  California  side  of  the  river,  and 
a  small  settlement  on  the  Arizona  side  called  Ari 
zona  City.  It  had  formerly  been  called  Colorado 
City,  but  the  name  was  changed  when  the  town  was 
permanently  settled.  There  were  two  ferries  in  op 
eration  at  Yiuma  when  our  company  arrived  there, 
one  of  them  run  by  the  peaceable  Yuma  Indians  and 
the  other  by  a  company  headed  by  Don  Diego  Jaeger 
and  Hartshorne.  Fort  Yuma  had  been  established 
in  1851  by  Major  Heintzelman,  U.S.A.,  but  owing 
to  scurvy  (see  De  Long's  history  of  Arizona)  and 
the  great  difficulty  in  getting  supplies,  the  Colorado 
River  being  then  uncharted  for  traffic,  it  was  aban 
doned  and  not  permanently  re-established  until  a 
year  later,  when  Major  Heintzelman  returned  from 
San  Diego.  The  townsite  of  Colorado  City  was 
laid  out  in  1854,  but  floods  wiped  out  the  town  with 


26  ARIZONA'S  YESTERDAY 

the  result  that  a  permanent  settlement,  called  Ari 
zona  City,  was  not  established  until  about  1862, 
four  years  before  I  reached  there. 

The  first  steamboat  to  reach  Yuma  with  supplies 
was  the  Uncle  Sam,  which  arrived  in  1852.  Of  all 
this  I  can  tell,  of  course,  only  by  hearsay,  but  there 
is  no  doubt  that  the  successful  voyage  of  the  Uncle 
Sam  to  Yluma  established  the  importance  of  that 
place  and  gave  it  pre-eminence  over  any  other  ship 
ping  point  into  the  territories  for  a  long  time. 

Until  the  coming  of  the  railroad,  supplies  for  Ari 
zona  were  shipped  from  San  Francisco  to  the  mouth 
of  the  Colorado  and  ferried  from  there  up  the  river 
to  Yuma,  being  there  transferred  to  long  wagon 
trains  which  traveled  across  the  plains  to  Tucson, 
which  was  then  the  distributing  point  for  the  whole 
Territory. 

Tucson  was,  of  course,  the  chief  city.  I  say  "city" 
only  in  courtesy,  for  it  was  such  in  importance  only, 
its  size  being  smaller  than  an  ordinary  eastern  vil 
lage.  Prescott,  which  was  the  first  Territorial 
Capital;  Tubac,  considered  by  many  the  oldest  set 
tled  town  in  Arizona,  near  which  the  famous  mines 
worked  by  Sylvester  Mowry  were  located;  Ehren- 
berg,  an  important  stage  point;  Sacaton,  in  the  Pima 
and  Maricopa  Indian  country,  and  other  small  set 
tlements  such  as  Apache  Pass,  which  was  a  fort, 
were  already  in  existence.  The  Gadsden  Purchase 
having  been  of  very  recent  date,  most  of  the  popu 
lation  was  Indian,  after  which  came  the  Mexicans 


FOLLOWING  THE  ARGONAUTS  27 

and  Spaniards  and  then  the  Americans,  who  arro 
gantly  termed  themselves  the  Whites,  although  the 
Spaniards  possessed  fully  as  white  a  complexion  as 
the  average  pioneer  from  the  eastern  states.  Until 
recently  the  Indian  dominated  the  white  man  in  Ari 
zona  in  point  of  numbers,  but  fortunately  only  one 
Indian  race — the  Apache — showed  unrelenting  hos 
tility  to  the  white  man  and  his  works.  Had  all  the 
Arizona  Indians  been  as  hostile  as  were  the  Apaches, 
the  probabilities  are  that  the  settlement  of  Arizona 
by  the  whites  would  have  been  of  far  more  recent 
date,  for  in  instance  after  instance  the  Americans 
in  Arizona  were  obliged  to  rely  on  the  help  of  the 
peaceful  Indians  to  combat  the  rapacious  Apaches. 
Yuma  is  the  place  where  the  infamous  "Doc" 
Glanton  and  his  gang  operated.  This  was  long  be 
fore  my  time,  and  as  the  province  of  this  book  is 
merely  to  tell  the  story  of  life  in  the  Territory  as  I 
saw  it,  it  has  no  place  within  these  pages.  It  may, 
however,  be  mentioned  that  Glanton  was  the  leader 
of  a  notorious  gang  of  freebooters  who  established 
a  ferry  across  the  Colorado  at  Yuma  and  used  it  as 
a  hold-up  scheme  to  trap  unwary  emigrants.  The 
Yuma  Indians  also  operated  a  ferry,  for  which  they 
had  hired  as  pilot  a  white  man,  whom  some  asserted 
to  have  been  a  deserter  from  the  United  States 
army.  One  day  Glanton  and  his  gang,  angered  at 
the  successful  rivalry  of  the  Indians,  fell  on  them 
and  slew  the  pilot.  The  Glanton  gang  was  subse 
quently  wiped  out  by  the  Indians  in  retaliation. 


28  ARIZONA'S  YESTERDAY 

When  the  Gila  City  gold  rush  set  in  Yuma  was 
the  point  to  which  the  adventurers  came  to  reach 
the  new  city.  I  have  heard  that  as  many  as  three 
thousand  gold  seekers  congregated  at  this  find,  but 
nothing  is  now  to  be  seen  of  the  former  town  but 
a  few  old  deserted  shacks  and  some  Indian  wickiups. 
Gold  is  still  occasionally  found  in  small  quantities 
along  the  Gila  River  near  this  point,  but  the  immense 
placer  deposits  have  long  since  disappeared,  although 
experts  have  been  quoted  as  saying  that  the  com 
pany  brave  enough  to  explore  the  fastnesses  of  the 
mountains  back  of  the  Gila  at  this  point  will  prob 
ably  be  rewarded  by  finding  rich  gold  mines. 

I  will  not  dwell  on  the  hardships  of  that  desert 
march  from  Yuma  to  Tucson,  for  which  the  rigors 
of  the  Civil  War  had  fortunately  prepared  most  of 
us,  further  than  to  say  that  it  was  many  long,  weary 
days  before  we  finally  came  in  sight  of  the  "Old 
Pueblo."  In  Tucson  I  became,  soon  after  our  ar 
rival,  twenty  years  old.  I  was  a  fairly  hardy  young 
ster,  too.  We  camped  in  Tucson  on  a  piece  of 
ground  in  the  center  of  the  town  and  soon  after  our 
arrival  were  set  to  work  making  a  clean,  orderly 
camp-park  out  of  the  wilderness  of  creosote  bushes 
and  mesquite.  I  remember  that  for  some  offence 
against  the  powers  of  the  day  I  was  then. '"serving 
time"  for  a  short  while  and,  among  other  things,  I 
cut  shrub  on  the  site  of  Tucson's  Military  Plaza, 
with  an  inelegant  piece  of  iron  chain  dangling  un 
comfortably  from  my  left  leg.  Oh,  I  wasn't  a  saint 


FOLLOWING  THE  ARGONAUTS  29 

in  those  days  any  more  than  I  am  a  particularly 
bright  candidate  for  wings  and  a  harp  now !  I  gave 
my  superior  officers  fully  as  much  trouble  as  the 
rest  of  'em ! 

Tucson's  Military  Plaza,  it  may  be  mentioned 
here,  was,  as  stated,  cleared  by  Company  C,  First 
United  States  Cavalry,  and  that  body  of  troops  was 
the  only  lot  of  soldiery  that  ever  camped  on  that 
spot,  which  is  now  historic.  In  after  years  it  was 
known  as  Camp  Lowell,  and  that  name  is  still  ap 
plied  to  a  fort  some  seven  miles  east  of  Tucson. 

Captain  Dean  had  not  come  with  us  to  Arizona, 
having  been  taken  ill  in  California  and  invalided 
home.  Lieutenant  Vail,  or,  as  he  was  entitled  to  be 
called,  Brevet-Major  Vail,  commanded  Company  C 
in  his  absence,  and  he  had  under  him  as  fearless  a 
set  of  men  as  could  have  been  found  anywhere  in 
the  country  in  those  days.  Vail  himself  was  the 
highest  type  of  officer — stern  and  unbending  where 
discipline  was  concerned,  and  eminently  courageous. 
Second  Lieutenant  Winters  was  a  man  of  the  same 
stamp,  and  both  men  became  well  known  in  the  Ter 
ritory  within  a  few  months  after  their  arrival  be 
cause  of  their  numerous  and  successful  forays 
against  marauding  Indians.  Vail  is  alive  yet,  or 
was  a  short  time  ago. 

After  some  wreeks  in  Tucson,  which  was  then  a 
typical  Western  town  peopled  by  miners,  assayers, 
surveyors,  tradespeople,  a  stray  banker  or  two  and, 
last  but  not  least  by  any  means,  gamblers,  we  were 


30  ARIZONA'S  YESTERDAY 

moved  to  old  Camp  Grant,  which  was  situated  sev 
eral    hundred    yards    downstream    from    the    point 
where  the  Aravaipa  Creek  runs  into  the  San  Pedro. 
Among  others  whom    I    remember  as    living  in 
Tucson  or  near  neighborhood  in  1866  were: 
Henry  Classman,  Green  Rusk, 

Tom  Yerkes,  Frank  Hodge, 

Lord  &  Williams,  Alex.  Levin, 

Pete  Kitchen,  Bob  Crandall, 

—  Tongue,  —  Wheat, 

The  Kelsey  boys,  Smith  Turner, 

Sandy  McClatchy,  "Old"  Pike. 

Glassman  lived  most  of  the  time  at  Tubac. 
Yerkes  owned  the  Settlers  Store  in  Tubac.  Lord 
and  Williams  ow'ned  the  chief  store  in  Tucson  and 
were  agents  for  the  United  States  Mail.  Pete 
Kitchen  was  at  Potrero  Ranch;  but  Pete,  who  was 
more  feared  by  the  Indians  than  any  white  man  in 
the  Territory,  deserves  a  whole  chapter  to  himself. 
Tongue  was  a  storekeeper.  Green  Rusk  owned  a 
popular  dance  house.  Hodge  and  Levin  had  a 
saloon.  Wheat  owned  a  saloon  and  afterwards  a 
ranch  near  Florence.  The  remainder  were  mostly 
gamblers,  good  fellows,  every  one  of  them.  "Old 
Pike"  especially  was  a  character  whose  memory  is 
now  fondly  cherished  by  every  pioneer  who  knew 
him.  He  could  win  or  lose  with  the  same  perpetual 
joviality,  but  he  generally  won.  The  principal 
gambling  game  in  those  days  was  Mexican  monte, 
played  with  forty  cards.  Poker  was  also  played  a 


FOLLOWING  THE  ARGONAUTS  31 

great  deal.  Keno,  faro  and  roulette  were  not  intro 
duced  until  later,  and  the  same  may  be  said  of 
pangingi,  the  Scandinavian  game. 

There  were  several  tribes  of  Apaches  wintering 
at  Camp  Grant  the  winter  we  went  there,  if  I  remem 
ber  correctly,  among  them  being  the  Tontos  and 
Aravaipas.  All  of  them,  however,  were  under  the 
authority  of  one  chief — Old  Eskiminzin,  one  of  the 
most  blood-thirsty  and  vindictive  of  all  the  old 
Apache  leaders.  The  Government  fed  these  Apaches 
well  during  the  winter  in  return  for  pledges  they 
made  to  keep  the  peace.  This  was  due  to  the  altru 
ism  of  some  mistaken  gentlemen  in  the  councils  of 
authority  in  the  East,  who  knew  nothing  of  condi 
tions  in  the  Territory  and  who  wrongly  believed 
that  the  word  of  an  Apache  Indian  would  hold  good. 
We,  who  knew  the  Indian,  understood  differently, 
but  we  were  obliged  to  obey  orders,  even  though 
these  were  responsible  in  part  for  the  many  Indian 
tragedies  that  followed. 

The  Apache  was  a  curious  character.  By  nature 
a  nomad,  by  temperament  a  fighter,  and  from  birth 
a  hater  of  the  white  man,  he  saw  nothing  good  in 
the  ways  of  civilization  except  that  which  fed  him, 
and  he  took  that  only  as  a  means  to  an  end.  Often 
an  Indian  chief  would  solemnly  swear  to  keep  the 
peace  with  his  "white  brethren"  for  a  period  of 
months,  and  the  next  day  go  forth  on  a  marauding 
expedition  and  kill  as  many  of  his  beloved  "breth 
ren"  as  he  could  lay  his  hands  on.  Every  dead 


32  ARIZONA'S  YESTERDAY 

white  man  was  a  feather  in  some  Apache's  head 
dress,  for  so  they  regarded  it. 

One  day  Chief  Eskiminzin  appeared  with  a  pro 
test  from  the  tribes  against  the  quality  of  the  rations 
they  were  receiving.  It  was  early  spring  and  the 
protest,  as  we  well  knew,  was  merely  his  way  of 
saying  that  the  Indians  were  no  longer  dependent  on 
what  the  government  offered  but  could  now  hunt 
their  own  meat.  Our  commanding  officer  endeav 
ored  to  placate  the  old  chief,  who  went  back  for  a 
conference  with  his  men.  Then  he  re-appeared, 
threw  down  his  rations,  the  others  doing  the  same, 
and  in  a  few  minutes  the  entire  encampment  of 
Apaches  was  in  the  saddle. 

Some  little  time  after  they  had  gone  Lieutenant 
Vail,  suspecting  trouble,  sent  a  man  dowft  the  trail 
to  investigate.  A  few  miles  away  was  a  ranch 
owned  by  a  man  named  Israels.  The  scout  found 
the  ranch  devastated,  with  Israels,  his  wife  and  fam 
ily  brutally  slain  and  all  the  stock  driven  off.  He 
reported  to  Vail,  who  headed  an  expedition  of  retal 
iation — the  first  I  ever  set  forth  on.  We  trailed  the 
Indians  several  days,  finally  coming  up  with  them 
and  in  a  pitched  battle  killing  many  of  them. 

This  was  just  a  sample  of  the  many  similar  inci 
dents  that  occurred  from  time  to  time  throughout 
the  Territory.  Invariably  the  Military  attempted  to 
find  the  raiders,  and  sometimes  they  were  successful. 
But  it  seemed  impossible  to  teach  the  Apaches  their 
lesson,  and  even  now  there  are  sometimes  simmer- 


FOLLOWING  THE  ARGONAUTS  33 

ings  of  discontent  among  the  surviving  Apaches  on 
their  reservation.  They  find  it  difficult  to  believe 
that  their  day  and  the  day  of  the  remainder  of  the 
savage  Indian  race  is  gone  forever. 

It  was  during  this  stay  at  Fort  Grant  that  Com 
pany  C  was  ordered  to  escort  the  first  Southern  Pa 
cific  survey  from  Apache  Pass,  which  w&s  a  govern 
ment  fort,  to  Sacaton,  in  the  Pima  Indian  country. 
The  route  abounded  with  hostile  Apaches  and  was 
considered  extremely  dangerous.  I  have  mentioned 
this  as  the  "first  Southern  Pacific  survey,"  but  this 
does  not  mean  that  there  were  not  before  that  other 
surveys  of  a  similar  character,  looking  to  the  estab 
lishment  of  a  transcontinental  railroad  route  through 
the  Territory.  As  early  as  1851  a  survey  was  made 
across  Northern  Arizona  by  Captain  L.  Sitgreaves, 
approximating  nearly  the  present  route  of  the  Santa 
Fe  Railway.  A  year  or  two  later  Lieutenant  A.  W. 
Whipple  made  a  survey  along  the  line  of  the  35th 
degree  parallel.  Still  later  Lieutenant  J.  G.  Parke 
surveyed  a  line  nearly  on  that  of  the  Southern  Pa 
cific  survey.  At  that  time,  just  before  the  Gadsden 
treaty,  the  territory  surveyed  was  in  the  republic  of 
Mexico.  These  surveys  were  all  made  by  order  of 
the  then  Secretary  of  War,  Jefferson  Davis,  who 
aroused  a  storm  of  protest  in  the  East  against  his 
"misguided  attention  to  the  desolate  West."  But 
few  statesmen  and  fewer  of  the  outside  public  in 
that  day  possessed  the  prophetic  vision  to  perceive 
the  future  greatness  of  what  were  termed  the  "arid 


34  ARIZONA'S  YESTERDAY 

wastes"  of  Arizona  and  California.  This  was  shown 
by  the  perfect  hail  of  protest  that  swept  to  the  White 
House  when  the  terms  of  the  Gadsden  Treaty, 
drawn  up  by  a  man  who  as  minister  to  a  great  minor 
republic  had  had  ample  opportunities  to  study  at  his 
leisure  the  nature  of  the  country  and  the  people  with 
whom  he  dealt,  became  known. 

This  Southern  Pacific  survey  party  was  under  the 
superintendence  of  Chief  Engineer  lego — I  believe 
that  is  the  way  he  spelled  his  name — who  was  recog 
nized  as  one  of  the  foremost  men  in  his  line  in  the 
country.  The  size  of  our  party,  which  included 
thirty  surveyors  and  surveyors'  helpers  in  addition  to 
the  soldier  escort,  served  to  deter  the  Indians,  and  we 
had  no  trouble  that  I  remember.  It  is  perhaps  worthy 
of  note  that  the  railroad,  as  it  wias  afterwards 
built — it  reached  Tucson  in  1880 — did  not  exactly 
follow  the  line  of  this  survey,  not  touching  at  Saca- 
ton.  It  passed  a  few  miles  south  of  that  point,  near 
the  famous  Casa  Grande,  where  now  is  a  consider 
able  town. 

Railroad  and  all  other  surveying  then  was  an  ex 
ceedingly  hazardous  job,  especially  in  Arizona, 
where  so  many  Indian  massacres  had  already  oc 
curred  and  were  still  to  occur.  In  fact,  any  kind  of 
a  venture  that  involved  traveling,  even  for  a  short 
distance,  whether  it  was  a  small  prospecting  or  emi 
grant's  outfit  or  whether  it  was  a  long  "train  on 
hoofs,"  laden  with  goods  of  the  utmost  value,  had  to 
be  escorted  by  a  squad  of  soldiers,  and  often  by  an 


FOLLOWING  THE  ARGONAUTS  35 

entire  company.  Even  thus  protected,  frequent  and 
daring  raids  were  made  by  the  cruel  and  fearless 
savages,  whose  only  dread  seemed  to  be  starvation 
and  the  on-coming  of  the  white  man,  and  who  would 
go  to  any  lengths  to  get  food. 

Looking  back  in  the  light  of  present  day  reason 
ing,  I  am  bound  to  say  that  it  would  be  wrong  to 
blame  the  Apaches  for  something  their  savage  and 
untutored  natures  could  not  help.  Before  the  "pale 
face"  came  to  the  Territory  the  Indian  was  lord  of 
all  he  surveyed,  from  the  peaks  of  the  mountains 
down  to  the  distant  line  of  the  silvery  horizon.  He 
was  monarch  of  the  desert  and  could  roam  over  his 
demesne  without  interference  save  from  hostile 
tribes;  and  into  his  very  being  there  was  born  nat 
urally  a  spirit  of  freedom  which  the  white  man  with 
all  his  weapons  could  never  kill.  He  knew  the  best 
hunting  grounds,  he  knew  where  grew  excellent 
fodder  for  his  horses,  he  knew  where  water  ran  the 
year  around,  and  in  the  rainy  season  he  knew  where 
the  waterholes  were  to  be  found.  In  his  wild  life 
there  was  only  the  religion  of  living,  and  the  divinity 
of  Freedom. 

When  the  white  man  came  he,  too,  found  the  fer 
tile  places,  the  running  water  and  the  hunting 
grounds,  and  he  confiscated  them  in  the  name  of  a 
higher  civilization  of  which  the  savage  knew  nothing 
and  desired  to  know  less.  Could  the  Indian  then  be 
blamed  for  his  overwhelming  hatred  of  the  white 
man?  His  was  the  inferior,  the  barbaric  race,  to  be 


36  ARIZONA'S  YESTERDAY 

sure,  but  could  he  be  blamed  for  not  believing  so? 
His  was  a  fight  against  civilization,  true,  and  it  was 
a  losing  fight  as  all  such  are  bound  to  be,  but  the 
Indian  did  not  know  what  civilization  was  except 
that  it  meant  that  he  was  to  be  robbed  of  his  hunting 
grounds  and  stripped  of  his  heritage  of  freedom. 
Therefore  he  fought  tirelessly,  savagely,  demoniac 
ally,  the  inroads  of  the  white  man  into  his  territory. 
All  that  he  knew,  all  that  he  wished  to  understand, 
was  that  he  had  been  free  and  happy  before  the 
white  man  had  come  with  his  thunder-weapons,  his 
fire-water  and  his  mad,  mad  passion  for  yellow  gold. 
The  Indian  could  not  understand  or  admit  that  the 
White  was  the  superior,  all-conquering  race,  and, 
not  understanding,  he  became  hostile  and  a  battling 
demon. 


So  intense  was  the  hatred  of  the  white  man  among 
the  Apaches  of  the  period  of  which  I  speak  that  it  was 
their  custom  to  cut  off  the  noses  of  any  one  of  their  women 
caught  in  illegal  intercourse  with  a  white  man.  This  done, 
she  was  driven  from  her  tribe,  declared  an  outcast  from 
her  people,  and  frequently  starved  to  death.  I  can  re 
member  many  instances  of  this  exact  kind. 


ROUGH  AND  TUMBLE  ON  LAND  AND  SEA 

r  'Twas  youth,  my  friend,  and  joyfulness  besides, 
That  made  me  breast  the  treachery  of  Neptune's 
fickle  tides." 

WHEN  Spring  came  around  in  the  year  1867 
we  were  moved  to  Tubac,  where  we  were 
joined  by  K  Company  of  my  regiment 
and  C  Company  of  the  Thirty-Second  Infantry. 
Tubac,  considered  by  some  to  be  the  oldest  town  in 
Arizona,  before  the  consummation  of  the  Gadsden 
Treaty  was  a  military  post  at  which  the  republic  of 
Mexico  regularly  kept  a  small  garrison.  It  was  sit 
uated  on  the  Santa  Cruz  River,  wlhich  at  this  point 
generally  had  considerable  water  in  it.  This  was 
probably  the  reason  for  the  establishment  of  the 
town,  for  water  has  always  been  the  controlling  fac 
tor  in  a  settlement's  progress  in  Arizona.  The  river 
is  dry  at  Tubac  now,  however,  except  in  unusually 
rainy  seasons,  irrigation  and  cattle  having  robbed 
the  stream  of  its  former  volume. 

At  the  time  we  were  quartered  there  Tubac  was 
a  place  of  no  small  importance,  and  after  Tucson 
and  Prescott  were  discounted  it  was  probably  the 
largest  settlement  in  the  Territory.  Patagonia  has 
now  taken  the  position  formerly  occupied  by  the  old 
adobe  town  as  center  of  the  rich  mining  zone  of 
Southern  Arizona,  and  the  glories  of  Tubac  (if  they 


38  ARIZONA'S  YESTERDAY 

can  be  given  that  name)  are,  like  the  glories  of 
Tombstone,  gone.  Unlike  those  of  Tombstone, 
however,  they  are  probably  gone  forever.  Tomb 
stone  may  yet  rise  from  the  ashes  of  her  splendid 
past  to  a  future  as  one  of  the  important  towns  of 
the  Southwest,  if  the  stories  of  untold  riches  near  by 
her  are  to  be  believed. 

A  little  to  the  east  of  Tubac  and  separating  that 
town  from  Patagonia  is  Mount  Wrightson,  one  of 
the  highest  mountains  in  Arizona.  Nicknamed  "Old 
Baldy"  after  its  famous  namesake  in  California,  this 
mammoth  pile  of  rock  and  copper  was  in  the  old 
days  a  landmark  for  travelers,  visible  sometimes  for 
days  ahead  on  the  wagon  trails.  It  presaged  near 
arrival  in  Tucson,  for  in  a  direct  line  Old  Baldy 
is  probably  not  further  than  forty  miles  from  the 
Old  Pueblo. 

We  camped  at  Tubac  during  the  summer  and  part 
of  the  winter  of  1867  and  I  remember  that  while  we 
were  there  I  cooked  a  reception  banquet  to  Colonel 
Richard  C.  McCormick,  who  was  then  and  until 
1869  Governor  of  the  Territory  of  Arizona.  I  for 
get  his  business  in  Tubac,  but  it  was  either  an  elec 
tioneering  trip  or  one  of  inspection  after  his  appoint 
ment  to  the  office  of  Governor  in  1866. 

In  the  early  part  of  1868  we  moved  to  Fort 
Buchanan,  wihich  before  the  war  had  been  a  "military 
post  of  considerable  importance.  It  received  its  name 
from  the  President  before  Lincoln  and  was  garri 
soned  by  Confederates  during  the  Civil  War.  We 


ROUGH  AND  TUMBLE  39 

re-built  the  fort  and  re-named  it  Fort  Crittenden,  in 
honor  of  General  Thomas  L.  Crittenden,  a  son  of 
the  Hon.  John  J.  Crittenden  of  Kentucky,  who  was 
then  in  command  of  the  military  district  embracing 
that  portion  of  the  Territory  south  of  the  Gila  River. 
Crittenden  was  beautifully  situated  on  the  Sonoita, 
about  ten  miles  from  where  I  now  live  and  in  the 
midst  of  some  of  the  most  marvelously  beautiful 
scenery  to  be  found  on  the  American  continent. 
Fort  Crittenden  is  no  longer  occupied  and  has  not 
been  for  some  time;  but  a  short  distance  toward 
Benson  is  Fort  Huachuaca,  where  at  present  a  gar 
rison  of  the  Ninth  Cavalry  is  quartered. 

During  part  of  1868  I  carried  mail  from  where 
Calabasas  is  now — it  was  then  Fort  Mason — to  Fort 
Crittenden,  a  proceeding  emphatically  not  as  simple 
as  it  may  sound.  My  way  lay  over  a  mountainous 
part  of  what  is  now  Santa  Cruz  county,  a  district 
which  at  that  time,  on  account  of  the  excellent  fod 
der  and  water,  abounded  with  hostile  Indians. 

On  one  occasion  that  I  well  remember  I  had 
reached  the  waterhole  over  which  is  now  the  first 
railroad  bridge  north  of  Patagonia,  about  a  half 
mile  from  the  present  town,  and  had  stopped  there 
to  water  my  horse.  While  the  animal  was  drinking 
I  struck  a  match  to  light  my  pipe — and  instantly  I 
ducked.  A  bullet  whistled  over  my  head,  near 
enough  to  give  me  a  strong  premonition  that  a 
couple  of  inches  closer  would  have  meant  my  end.  I 
seized  the  bridle  of  my  horse,  leaped  on  his  back, 


40  ARIZONA'S  YESTERDAY 

bent  low  over  the  saddle  and  rode  for  it.  I  escaped, 
but  it  is  positive  in  my  mind  today  that  if  those 
Apaches  had  been  better  accustomed  to  the  use  of 
the  white  man's  weapons  I  wlould  not  now  be  alive 
to  tell  the  story. 

I  was  a  great  gambler,  even  in  those  days.  It 
was  the  fashion,  then,  to  gamble.  Everybody  except 
the  priests  and  parsons  gambled,  and  there  was  a 
scarcity  of  priests  and  parsons  in  the  sixties.  Men 
would  gamble  their  dust,  and  when  that  was  gone 
they  would  gamble  their  worldly  possessions,  and 
when  those  had  vanished  they'  would  gamble  their 
clothes,  and  if  they  lost  their  clothes  there  were 
instances  where  some  men  even  wient  so  far  as  to 
gamble  their  wives !  And  every  one  of  us,  each  day, 
gambled  his  life,  so  you  see  the  whole  life  in  the 
Territory  in  the  early  days  was  one  continuous 
gamble.  Nobody  save  gamblers  came  out  there,  be 
cause  nobody  but  gamblers  would  take  the  chance. 

As  I  have  stated,  I  followed  the  natural  trend.  I 
had  a  name,  even  in  those  days,  of  being  one  of  the 
most  spirited  gamblers  in  the  regiment,  and  that 
meant  the  countryside;  and  I  confess  it  today  with 
out  shame,  although  it  is  some  time  now  since  I 
raised  an  ante.  I  remember  one  occasion  when  my 
talents  for  games  of  chance  turned  out  rather 
peculiarly.  We  had  gone  to  Calabasas  to  ge't  a  load 
of  wheat  from  a  store  owned  by  a  man  named  Rich 
ardson,  who  had  been  a  Colonel  in  the  volunteer 
service.  Richardson  had  as  manager  of  the  store 


ROUGH  AND  TUMBLE  41 

a  fellow  named  Long,  who  wlas  well  known  for  his 
passion  for  gambling.  After  we  had  given  our  order 
we  sought  about  for  some  diversion  to  make  the 
time  pass,  and  Long  caught  sight  of  the  goatskin 
chaperejos  I  was  wearing.  He  stared  at  them  en 
viously  for  a  minute  and  then  proposed  to  buy  them. 

"They're  not  for  sale,"  said  I,  "but  if  you  like 
I'll  play  you  for  'em." 

"Done!"  said  Long,  and  put  up  sixteen  dollars 
against  the  chaps. 

Now,  Long  was  a  game  sport,  but  that  didn't 
make  him  lucky.  I  won  his  sixteen  dollars  and  then 
he  bet  me  some  whiskey  against  the  lot,  and  again  I 
won.  By  the  time  I  had  beat  him  five  or  six  times, 
had  won  a  good  half  of  the  store's  contents,  and 
was  proposing  to  play  him  for  his  share  in  the  store 
itself,  he  cried  quits.  We  loaded  our  plunder  on  the 
wagon.  Near  Bloxton,  or  where  Bloxton  now  is, 
four  miles  west  of  Patagonia,  we  managed  to  upset 
the  wagon,  and  half  the  whiskey  and  wheat  never 
was  retrieved.  We  had  the  wherewithal  to  "fix 
things"  with  the  officers,  however,  and  went  unre- 
proved,  even  making  a  tidy  profit  selling  what  stuff 
we  had  left  to  the  soldiers. 

At  that  time  the  company  maintained  gardens  on 
a  part  of  wfhat  afterwards  was  the  Sanford  Rancho, 
and  at  one  time  during  1868  I  was  gardening  there 
with  three  others.  The  gardens  were  on  a  ranch 
owned  by  William  Morgan,  a  discharged  sergeant 
of  our  company.  Morgan  had  one  Mexican  work- 


42  ARIZONA'S  YESTERDAY 

ing  for  him  and  there  were  four  of  us  from  the  Fort 
stationed  there  to  cultivate  the  gardens  and  keep  him 
company — more  for  the  latter  reason  than  the  first, 
I  believe.  We  took  turn  and  turn  about  of  one 
month  at  the  Fort  and  one  month  at  the  gardens, 
which  were  about  fourteen  miles  from  the  Fort. 

One  of  us  was  Private  White,  of  Company  K. 
He  was  a  mighty  fine  young  fellow,  and  we  all  liked 
him.  Early  one  morning  the  five  of  us  were  eating 
breakfast  in  the  cabin,  an  illustration  of  which  is 
given,  and  White  went  outside  for  something.  Soon 
afterward  we  heard  several  reports,  but,  figuring 
that  White  had  shot  at  some  animal  or  other,  we 
did  not  even  get  up  from  our  meal.  Finally  came 
another  shot,  and  then  another,  and  Morgan  got  up 
and  peered  from  the  door.  He  gave  a  cry. 

"Apaches!"  he  shouted.  "They're  all  around! 
Poor  White " 

It  was  nip-and-tuck  then.  For  hours  we  kept  up 
a  steady  fire  at  the  Indians,  who  circled  the  house 
with  blood-curdling  whoops.  We  killed  a  number 
of  them  before  they  finally  took  themselves  off. 
Then  we  went  forth  to  look  for  White.  We  found 
our  comrade  lying  on  his  back  a  short  distance  away, 
his  eyes  staring  unseeingly  to  the  sky.  He  was  dead. 
We  carried  him  to  the  house  and  discussed  the  sit 
uation. 

'They'll  come  back,"  said  Morgan,  with  convic 
tion. 


ROUGH  AND  TUMBLE  43 

'Then  it's  up  to  one  of  us  to  ride  to  the  Fort,"  I 
said. 

But  Morgan  shook  his  head. 

"There  isn't  a  horse  anywhere  near,"  he  said. 

We  had  an  old  army  mule  working  on  the  gar 
dens  and  I  bethought  myself  of  him. 

"There's  the  mule,"  I  suggested. 

My  companions  were  silent.  That  mule  was  the 
slowest  creature  in  Arizona,  I  firmly  believed.  It 
was  as  much  as  he  could  do  to  walk,  let  alone  gallop. 

"Somebody's  got  to  go,  or  we'll  all  be  killed,"  I 
said.  "Let's  draw  lots." 

They  agreed  and  we  found  five  straws,  one  of 
them  shorter  than  the  rest.  These  we  drew,  and  the 
short  one  fell  to  me. 

I  look  back  on  that  desperate  ride  now  with  feel 
ings  akin  to  horror.  Surrounded  with  murderous 
savages,  with  only  a  decrepit  mule  to  ride  and  four 
teen  miles  to  go,  it  seemed  impossible  that  I  could 
get  through  safely.  My  companions  said  good-bye 
to  me  as  though  I  were  a  scaffold  victim  about  to  be 
executed.  But  get  through  I  did — how  I  do  not 
know — and  the  chillingly  weird  war-calls  of  the 
Indians  howling  at  me  from  the  hills  as  I  rode  re 
turn  to  my  ears  even  now  with  extraordinary  vivid 
ness. 

And,  as  Morgan  had  prophesied,  the  Apaches  did 
"come  back."  It  was  a  month  later,  and  I  had  been 
transferred  back  to  the  Fort,  when  a  nephew  of 
Colonel  Dunkelberger  and  William  J.  Osborn  of 


44  ARIZONA'S  YESTERDAY 

Tucson  were  riding  near  Morgan's  ranch.  Apaches 
ambushed  them,  slew  the  Colonel's  nephew,  whose 
name  has  slipped  my  memory,  and  wounded  Osborn. 
The  latter,  who  was  a  person  of  considerable  impor 
tance  in  the  Territory,  escaped  to  Morgan's  ranch. 
An  expedition  of  retaliation  was  immediately  organ 
ized  at  the  Fort  and  the  soldiers  pursued  the  assas 
sins  into  Mexico,  finally  coming  up  with  them  and 
killing  a  number.  I  did  not  accompany  the  troops 
on  this  occasion,  having  been  detailed  to  the  Santa 
Rita  range  to  bring  in  lumber  to  be  used  in  building 
houses. 

I  returned  from  the  Santa  Ritas  in  July  and  found 
an  order  had  been  received  at  the  Fort  from  the  War 
Department  that  all  men  whose  times  had  expired 
or  were  shortly  to  expire  should  be  congregated  in 
Tucson  and  from  there  marched  to  California  for 
their  discharge.  A  few  weeks  later  I  went  to  the 
Old  Pueblo  and,  together  with  several  hundred 
others  from  all  parts  of  the  Territory,  was  mustered 
out  and  started  on  the  return  march  to  Wilmington 
where  we  arrived  about  October  1.  On  the  twelfth 
of  October  I  was  discharged. 

After  working  as  cook  for  a  short  time  for  a  com 
pany  that  was  constructing  a  railroad  from  Wil 
mington  to  Los  Angeles,  I  moved  to  the  latter  place 
and  obtained  employment  in  the  Old  Bella  Union 
Hotel  as  chef.  John  King  was  the  proprietor  of  the 
Bella  Union.  Until  Christmas  eve  I  stayed  there, 
and  then  Sergeant  John  Curtis,  of  my  company,  who 


ROUGH  AND  TUMBLE  45 

had  been  working  as  a  saddler  for  Banning,  a  cap 
italist  in  Wilmington,  came  back  to  the  kitchen  and 
said: 

"John,  old  sport,  let's  go  to  'Frisco." 

"I  haven't,"  I  told  him,  "enough  change  to  set  'em 
up  across  the  street,  let  alone  go  to  'Frisco." 

For  answer  Curtis  pulled  out  a  wallet,  drew  there 
from  a  roll  of  bills  that  amounted  to  about  $1,000, 
divided  the  pile  into  two  halves,  laid  them  on  the 
table  and  indicated  them  with  his  forefinger. 

"John,"  he  offered,  "if  you'll  come  with  me  you 
can  put  one  of  those  piles  in  your  pocket.  What  do 
you  say?" 

Inasmuch  as  I  had  had  previously  little  oppor 
tunity  to  really  explore  San  Francisco,  the  idea  ap 
pealed  to  me  and  we  shook  hands  on  the  bargain. 
Christmas  morning,  fine,  cloudless  and  warm,  found 
us  seated  on  the  San  Jose  stage.  San  Jose  then  was 
nearly  as  large  a  place  as  Tucson  is  now — about 
twenty  odd  thousand,  if  I  remember  rightly.  The 
stage  route  carried  us  through  the  mission  coun 
try  now  so  widely  exploited  by  the  railroads. 
Santa  Barbara,  San  Luis  Obispo  and  Monterey  were 
all  towns  on  the  way,  Monterey  being  probably  the 
largest.  The  country  was  very  thinly  occupied, 
chiefly  by  Spanish  haciendas  that  had  been  in  the 
country  long  before  gold  was  discovered.  The  few 
and  powerful  owners  of  these  estates  controlled 
practically  the  entire  beautiful  State  of  California 
prior  to  '49,  and  at  the  time  I  write  of  still  retained 


46  ARIZONA'S  YESTERDAY 

a  goodly  portion  of  it.  They  grew  rich  and  power 
ful,  for  their  lands  were  either  taken  by  right  of  con 
quest  or  by  grants  from  the  original  Mexican  gov 
ernment,  and  they  paid  no  wages  to  their  peons. 
These  Spaniards,  with  the  priests,  however,  are  to 
be  credited  with  whatever  progress  civilization  made 
in  the  early  days  of  California.  They  built  the  first 
passable  roads,  they  completed  rough  surveys  and 
they  first  discovered  the  wonderful  fertility  of  the 
California  soils.  The  towns  they  built  were  built 
solidly,  with  an  eye  to  the  future  ravages  of  earth 
quakes  and  of  Time,  which  is  something  the  modern 
builder  often  does  not  do.  There  are  in  many  of 
their  pueblos  old  houses  built  by  the  Spaniards  in 
the  middle  part  of  the  eighteenth  century  which  are 
still  used  and  occupied. 

We  arrived  in  San  Francisco  a  few  days  after  our 
departure  from  Los  Angeles,  and  before  long  the 
city  had  done  to  us  what  she  still  does  to  so  many — 
had  broken  us  on  her  fickle  wheel  of  fortune.  It 
wasn't  many  days  before  we  found  ourselves,  our 
"good  time"  a  thing  of  the  past,  "up  against  it." 

"John,"  said  Curtis,  finally,  "we're  broke.  We 
can't  get  no  work.  What'll  we  do?" 

I  thought  a  minute  and  then  suggested  the  only 
alternative  I  could  think  of.  "Let's  get  a  blanket/' 
I  offered. 

"Getting  a  blanket"  was  the  phrase  commonly  in 
use  when  men  meant  to  say  that  they  intended  to 
enlist.  Curtis  met  the  idea  with  instant  approval,  if 


ROUGH  AND  TUMBLE  47 

not  with  acclamation,  and,  suiting  the  action  to  the 
words,  we  obtained  a  hack  and  drove  to  the  Pre 
sidio,  where  we  underwent  the  examination  for  artil 
lerymen.  Curtis  passed  easily  and  was  accepted,  but 
I,  owing  to  a  wound  in  my  ankle  received  during  the 
war,  was  refused. 

Curtis  obtained  the  customary  three  days'  leave 
before  joining  his  company  and  for  that  brief  space 
we  roamed  about  the  city,  finishing  our  "good  time" 
with  such  money  as  Curtis  -had  been  able  to  raise  by 
pawning  and  selling  his  belongings.  After  the 
three  days  were  over  we  parted,  Curtis  to  join  his 
regiment;  and  since  then  I  have  neither  seen  nor 
heard  of  him.  If  he  still  chances  to  be  living,  my 
best  wishes  go  out  to  him  in  his  old  age. 

For  some  time  I  hung  around  San  Francisco  try 
ing  to  obtain  employment,  without  any  luck.  I  was 
not  then  as  skillful  a  gambler  as  I  became  in  after 
years,  and,  in  any  case,  I  had  no  money  with  which 
to  gamble.  It  was,  I  found,  one  thing  to  sit  down  to 
a  monte  deck  at  a  table  surrounded  with  people  you 
knew,  where  your  credit  was  good,  and  another  to 
stake  your  money  on  a  painted  wheel  in  a  great  hall 
where  nobody  cared  whether  you  won  or  lost. 

Trying  to  make  my  little  stake  last  as  long  as  pos 
sible,  I  roomed  in  a  cheap  hotel — the  old  What 
Cheer  rooming  house,  and  ate  but  one  ' 'two-bit" 
meal  a  day.  I  was  constantly  on  the  lookout  for 
work  of  some  kind,  but  had  no  luck  until  one  day 
as  I  was  passing  up  Kearney  street  I  saw  a  sign  in 


48  ARIZONA'S  YESTERDAY 

one  of  the  store  windows  calling  for  volunteers  for 
the  Sloop-o'-War  Jamestowin.  After  reading  the 
notice  a  couple  of  times  I  decided  to  enlist,  did  so, 
was  sent  to  Mare  Island  Navy  Yard  and  from  there 
boarded  the  Jamestown, 

It  was  on  that  vessel  that  I  performed  an  action 
that  I  have  not  since  regretted,  however  reprehen 
sible  it  may  seem  in  the  light  of  present-day  ethics. 
Smallpox  broke  out  on  board  and  I,  fearful  of  con 
tracting  the  dread  disease,  planned  to  desert.  This 
would  probably  not  have  been  possible  today,  when 
the  quarantine  regulations  are  so  strict,  but  in  those 
days  port  authorities  were  seldom  on  the  alert  to 
prevent  vessels  with  diseases  anchoring  with  other 
shipping,  especially  in  Mexico,  in  the  waters  of 
which  country  we  were  cruising. 

When  we  reached  Mazatlan  I  went  ashore  in  the 
ordinary  course  of  my  duties  as  ward-room  steward 
to  do  some  marketing  and  take  the  officers'  laundry 
to  be  washed.  Instead  of  bringing  the  marketing 
back  to  the  ship  I  sent  it,  together  with  a  note  telling 
where  the  laundry  would  be  found,  and  saying  good 
bye  forever  to  my  shipmates.  The  note  written  and 
dispatched,  I  quietly  "vamoosed,"  or,  as  I  believe  it 
is  popularly  termed  in  the  navy  now,  I  "went  over 
the  hill." 

My  primary  excuse  for  this  action  was,  "of  course, 
the  outbreak  of  smallpox,  which  at  that  time  and  in 
fact  until  very  recently,  was  as  greatly  dreaded  as 
bubonic  plague  is  now,  and  probably  more.  Vac- 


ROUGH  AND  TUMBLE  49 

cination,  whatever  may  be  its  value  in  the  prevention 
of  the  disease,  had  not  been  discovered  in  the  sense 
that  it  is  now  understood  and  was  not  known  at  all 
except  in  the  centers  of  medical  practice  in  the  East. 

Smallpox  then  was  a  mysterious  disease,  and  cer 
tainly  a  plague.  Whole  populations  had  been  wiped 
out  by  it,  doctors  had  announced  that  there  was 
practically  no  cure  for  it  and  that  its  contraction 
meant  almost  certain  death,  and  I  may  thus  be  ex 
cused  for  my  fear  of  the  sickness.  I  venture  to  state, 
moreover,  that  if  all  the  men  aboard  the  Jamestown 
had  had  the  same  opportunity  that  I  was  given  to 
desert,  they  would  have  done  so  in  a  body. 

My  second  excuse,  reader,  if  one  is  necessary,  is 
that  in  the  days  of  the  Jamestown  and  her  sister 
ships,  navy  life  was  very  different  from  the  navy  life 
of  today,  when  I  understand  generous  paymasters 
are  even  giving  the  jackies  ice-cream  with  their 
meals.  You  may  be  entirely  sure  that  wfe  got  noth 
ing  of  the  kind.  Our  food  was  bad,  our  quarters 
were  worse,  and  the  discipline  was  unbearably 
severe. 


THROUGH  MEXICO  AND    BACK  TO  ARI 
ZONA 

"Know  thou  the  spell  of  the  desert  land, 

Where  Life  and  Love  are  free? 
Know  thou  the  lure  the  sky  and  sand 

Hath  for  the  man  in  me?" 

WHEN  I  deserted  from  the  sloop-o'-war 
Jamestown  it  was  with  the  no  uncertain 
knowledge  that  it  was  distinctly  to  my 
best  advantage  to  clear  out  of  the  city  of  Mazatlan 
just  as  rapidly  as  I  could,  for  the  ships  of  the  free 
and  (presumably)  enlightened  Republic  had  not  yet 
swerved  altogether  from  the  customs  of  the  King's 
Navee,  one  of  which  said  customs  was  to  hang  de 
serters  at  the  yard-arm.  Sometimes  they  shot  them, 
but  I  do  not  remember  that  the  gentlemen  most  con 
cerned  had  any  choice  in  the  matter.  At  any  rate, 
I  know  that  it  was  with  a  distinct  feeling  of  relief 
that  I  covered  the  last  few  yards  that  brought  me 
out  of  the  city  of  Mazatlan  and  into  the  open  coun 
try.  In  theory,  of  course,  the  captain  of  the  sloop- 
o'-war  Jamestown  could  not  have  sent  a  squad  of 
men  after  me  with  instructions  to  bring  me  back  off 
foreign  soil  dead  or  alive,  but  in  practice  that  is  just 
what  he  would  have  done.  Theory  and  practice 
have  a  habit  of  differing,  especially  in  the 'actions  of 
an  irate  skipper  who  sees  one  of  his  best  ward-room 
stewards  vanishing  from  his  jurisdiction. 


THROUGH  MEXICO  TO  ARIZONA  51 

Life  now1  opened  before  me  with  such  a  vista  of 
possibilities  that  I  felt  my  breath  taken  away.  Here 
was  I,  a  youth  twenty-two  years  old,  husky  and 
sound  physically,  free  in  a  foreign  country  which  I 
felt  an  instant  liking  for,  and  no  longer  beholden  to 
the  Stars  and  Stripes  for  which  I  was  quite  ready  to 
fight  but  not  to  serve  in  durance  vile  on  a  plague- 
ship.  My  spirit  bounded  at  -the  thought  of  the  liberty 
that  was  mine,  and  I  struck  northward  out  of  Mazat- 
lan  with  a  light  step  and  a  lighter  heart.  At  the  edge 
of  the  city  I  paused  awhile  on  a  bluff  to  gaze  for  the 
last  time  on  the  Bay,  on  the  waters  of  which  rode 
quietly  at  anchor  the  vessel  I  had  a  few  hours  before 
quit  so  unceremoniously.  There  was  no  regret  in 
my  heart  as  I  stood  there  and  looked.  I  had  no  par 
ticular  love  for  Mexico,  but  then  I  had  no  particular 
love  for  the  sea,  either,  and  a  good  deal  less  for  the 
ships  that  sailed  the  sea.  So  I  turned  my  back  very 
definitely  on  that  part  of  my  life  and  set  my  face 
toward  the  north,  where,  had  I  known  it,  I  was  to 
find  my  destiny  beneath  the  cloudless  turquoise  skies 
of  Arizona. 

When  I  left  Mazatlan  it  was  with  the  intention 
of  walking  as  far  as  I  could  before  stopping,  or  until 
the  weight  of  the  small  bundle  containing  my 
worldly  possessions  tired  my  shoulders.  But  it  was 
not  to  be  so.  Only  two  miles  out  of  the  city  I  came 
upon  a  ranch  owned  by  two  Americans,  the  sight  of 
whom  was  very  welcome  to  me  just  then.  I  had  no 
idea  that  I  should  find  any  American  ranchers  in  the 


52  ARIZONA'S  YESTERDAY 

near  neighborhood,  and  considered  myself  in  luck. 
I  found  that  one  of  the  American's  names  was  Col 
onel  Elliot  and  I  asked  him  for  work.  Elliot  sized 
me  up,  invited  me  in  to  rest  up,  and  on  talking  with 
him  I  found  him  to  be  an  exceedingly  congenial  soul. 
He  was  an  old  Confederate  colonel — was  Elliot,  but 
although  we  had  served  on  opposite  sides  of  the  sad 
war  of  a  few  years  back,  the  common  bond  of  na 
tionality  that  is  always  strongest  beyond  the  con 
fines  of  one's  own  land  prevented  us  from  feeling 
any  aloofness  toward  each  other  on  this  account. 
To  me  Colonel  Elliot  was  an  American,  and  a  mighty 
decent  specimen  of  an  American  at  that — a  friend 
in  need.  And  to  Colonel  Elliot  also  I  was  an  Amer 
ican,  and  one  needing  assistance.  ;We  seldom  spoke 
of  our  political  differences,  partly  because  our  lives 
speedily  became  too  full  and  intimate  to  admit  of 
the  petty  exchange  of  divergent  views,  and  partly 
because  I  had  been  a  boy  during  the  Civil  War  and 
my  youthful  brain  had  not  been  sufficiently  mature 
to  assimilate  the  manifold  prejudices,  likes,  dislikes 
and  opposing  theories  that  wlere  the  heritage  of 
nearly  all  those  who  lived  during  that  bloody  four 
years'  war. 

I  have  said  that  Colonel  Elliot  was  a  friend  in 
need.  There  is  an  apt  saying  that  a  "friend  in  need 
is  a  friend  indeed,"  and  such  was  Colonel  Elliot  as 
I  soon  found.  For  I  had  not  been  a  week  at  the 
ranch  when  I  was  struck  down  with  smallpox,  and 
throughout  that  dangerous  sickness,  lasting  several 


THROUGH  MEXICO  TO  ARIZONA  53 

weeks,  the  old  Colonel,  careless  of  contagion,  nursed 
me  like  a  woman,  finally  bringing  me  back  to  a 
point  where  I  once  again  had  full  possession  of  all 
my  youthful  health  and  vigor. 

I  do  not  just  now  recall  the  length  of  time  I 
worked  for  Elliot  and  his  partner,  but  the  stay,  if 
not  long,  was  most  decidedly  pleasant.  I  grew  to 
speak  Spanish  fluently,  haunted  the  town  of  Mazat- 
lan  (from  which  the  Jamestown  had  long  since  de 
parted),  and  made  as  good  use  generally  of  my  tem 
porary  employment  as  was  possible.  I  tried  hard  to 
master  the  patois  of  the  peon  as  well  as  the  flowery 
and  eloquent  language  of  the  aristocracy,  for  I  knew 
well  that  should  I  at  any  time  seek  employment  as 
overseer  at  a  rancho  either  in  Mexico  or  Arizona,  a 
knowledge  of  the  former  would  be  indispensable, 
while  a  knowledge  of  the  latter  was  at  all  times  use 
ful  in  Mexico,  especially  in  the  cities,  where  the  pos 
session  of  the  cultured  dialect  marked  one  for  spe 
cial  favors  and  secured  better  attention  at  the  stores. 

The  Mexicans  I  grew:  to  understand  and  like  more 
and  more  the  longer  I  knew  them.  I  found  the 
average  Mexican  gentleman  a  model  of  politeness, 
a  Beau  Brummel  in  dress  and  an  artist  in  the  use  of 
the  flowery  terms  with  which  his  splendid  language 
abounds.  The  peons  also  I  came  to  know  and  un 
derstand.  I  found  them  a  simple-minded,  uncom 
plaining  class,  willingly  accepting  the  burdens  which 
were  laid  on  them  by  their  masters,  the  rich  land 
lords;  and  living,  loving  and  playing  very  much  as 


54  ARIZONA'S  YESTERDAY 

children.  They  were  good-hearted — these  Mexi 
cans,  and  hospitable  to  the  last  degree.  This,  indeed, 
is  a  characteristic  as  truly  of  the  Mexican  of  today 
as  of  the  period  of  which  I  speak.  They  would,  if 
needs  be,  share  their  last  crust  with  you  even1  if  you 
were  an  utter  stranger,  and  many  the  time  some 
lowly  peon  host  of  mine  wbuld  insist  on  my  occupy 
ing  his  rude  bed  whilst  he  and  his  family  slept  on 
the  roof!  Such  warm-hearted  simplicity  is  very 
agreeable,  and  it  was  a  vast  change  from  the  world 
of  the  Americans,  especially  of  the  West,  where  the 
watchword  was :  "Every  man  for  himsel',  and  the 
de'il  tak'  the  hindmost."  It  may  be  remarked  here 
that  the  de'il  often  took  the  foremost,  too ! 

When  I  left  the  hospitable  shelter  of  Colonel  El 
liot's  home  I  moved  to  Rosario,  Sinaloa,  where  was 
situated  the  famous  Tajo  mine  which  has  made  the 
fortunes  of  the  Bradbury  family.  It  was  owned 
then  by  Don  Luis  Bradbury,  senior,  the  same  Brad 
bury  wlhose  son  is  now  such  a  prominent  figure  in 
the  social  and  commercial  life  of  San  Francisco  and 
Los  Angeles.  I  asked  for  work  at  the  Bradbury 
mine,  obtained  it,  and  started  in  shoveling  refuse 
like  any  other  common  laborer  at  the  munificent 
wage  of  ten  dollars  per  week,  which  was  a  little  less 
than  ten  dollars  more  than  the  Mexican  peons  labor 
ing  at  the  same  work  obtained.  I  had  not  been 
working  there  long,  however,  when  some -sugges 
tions  I  made  to  the  engineer  obtained  me  recognition 
and  promotion,  and  at  the  end  of  a  year,  when  I 


THROUGH  MEXICO  TO  ARIZONA  55 

quit,  I  was  earning  $150  per  month,  or  nearly  four 
times  what  my  wage  had  been  when  I  started. 

And  then — and  then,  I  believe  it  w*as  the  spell  of 
the  Arizona  plains  that  gripped  the  strings  of  my 
soul  again  and  caused  them  to  play  a  different 
tune.  .  V  .  Or  was  it  the  prospect  of  an  exciting 
and  more  or  less  lawless  life  on  the  frontier  that 
beckoned  with  enticing  lure?  I  do  not  know.  But 
I  grew  to  think  more  and  more  of  Arizona,  the  Ter 
ritory  in  which  I  had  reached  my  majority  and  had 
found  my  manhood;  and  more  and  more  I  discov 
ered  myself  longing  to  be  back  shaking  hands  with 
my  old  friends  and  companions,  and  shaking,  too, 
dice  with  Life  itself.  So  one  day  saw  me  once  more 
on  my  way  to  the  wild  and  free  Territory,  although 
this  time  my  road  did  not  lie  wholly  across  a  burn 
ing  and  uninhabited  desert. 

It  is  a  hard  enough  proposition  now  to  get  to  the 
United  States  from  Mazatlan,  or  any  other  point  in 
Mexico,  when  the  Sud  Pacifico  and  other  railroads 
are  shattered  in  a  dozen  places  and  their  schedules, 
those  that  have  them,  are  dependent  on  the  magna 
nimity  of  the  various  tribes  of  bandits  that  infest  the 
routes;  but  at  the  time  I  write  of  it  was  harder. 

To  strike  north  overland  was  possible,  though  not 
to  be  advised,  for  brigands  infested  the  cedar  forests 
of  Sinaloa  and  southern  Sonora;  and  savage  Yaquis, 
quite  as  much  to  be  feared  as  the  Apaches  of  further 
north,  ravaged  the  desert  and  mountain  country.  I 
solved  the  difficulty  finally  by  going  to  Mazatlan 


56  ARIZONA'S  YESTERDAY 

and  shipping  from  that  port  as  a  deck-hand  on  a 
Dutch  brigantine,  which  I  remember  because  of  its 
exceptionally  vile  quarters  and  the  particularly  dirty 
weather  we  ran  up  against  on  our  passage  up  the 
Gulf.  The  Gulf  of  California,  especially  the  mouth 
of  it,  has  always  had  an  evil  reputation  among 
mariners,  and  with  justness,  but  I  firmly  believe  the 
elements  out-did  themselves  in  ferocity  on  the  trip 
I  refer  to. 

Guaymas  reached,  my  troubles  were  not  over,  for 
there  was  still  the  long  Sonora  desert  to  be  crossed 
before  the  haven  of  Hermosillo  could  be  reached. 
At  last  I  made  arrangements  with  a  freighting  outfit 
and  went  along  with  them.  I  had  had  a  little  money 
when  I  started,  but  both  Mazatlan  and  Guaymas 
happened  to  be  chiefly  filled  with  cantinas  and 
gambling-hells,  and  as  I  was  not  averse  to  frequent 
ing  either  of  these  places  of  first  resort  to  the  lonely 
wanderer,  my  money-bag  was  considerably  depleted 
when  at  last  I  arrived  in  the  beautiful  capital  of 
Sonora.  I  was,  in  fact,  if  a  few  odd  dollars  are 
excepted,  broke,  and  work  was  a  prime  necessity. 
Fortunately,  jobs  were  at  that  time  not  very  hard 
to  find. 

There  was  at  that  time  in  Hermosillo  a  house 
named  the  Casa  Marian  Para,  kept  by  one  who 
styled  himself  William  Taft.  The  Casa  Marian 
Para  will  probably  be  remembered  in  Hermosillo  by 
old-timers  now — in  fact,  I  have  my  doubts  that  it  is 
not  still  standing.  It  was  the  chief  stopping-house 


THROUGH  MEXICO  TO  ARIZONA  57 

in  Sonora  at  that  time.  I  obtained  employment  from 
Taft  as  a  cook,  but  stayed  with  it  only  long  enough 
to  procure  myself  a  "grub-stake,"  after  which  I  "hit 
the  grit"  for  Tucson,  crossing  the  border  on  the 
Nogales  trail  a  few  days  later.  '  I  arrived  in  Tucson 
in  the  latter  part  of  the  year  1870,  and  obtained 
work  cooking  for  Charlie  Brown  and  his  family. 

It  was  while  I  was  employed  as  chef  in  the  Brown 
household  that  I  made — and  lost,  of  course,  a  for 
tune.  No,  it  wasn't  a  very  big  fortune,  but  it  was  a 
fortune  certainly  very  curiously  and  originally  made. 
I  made  it  by  selling  ham  sandwiches ! 

Charlie  Brown  owftied  a  saloon  not  far  from  the 
Old  Church  Plaza.  It  was  called  Congress  Hall, 
had  been  completed  in  1868  and  was  one  of  the  most 
popular  places  in  town.  Charlie  was  fast  becoming 
a  plutocrat.  One  night  in  the  saloon  I  happened  to 
hear  a  man  come  in  and  complain  because  there 
wasn't  a  restaurant  in  town  that  would  serve  him  a 
light  snack  at  that  time  of  night  except  at  outrageous 
prices. 

"That's  right,"  said  another  man  near  me,  "if 
somebody  would  only  have  the  sense  to  start  a  lunch- 
counter  here  the  way  they  have  them  in  the  East 
he'd  make  all  kinds  of  money." 

The  words  suggested  a  scheme  to  me.  The  next 
day  I  saw  Brown  and  got  his  permission  to  serve  a 
light  lunch  of  sandwiches  and  coffee  in  the  saloon 
after  I  had  finished  my  work  at  the  house.  Just  at 
that  time  there  wias  a  big  crowd  in  the  town,  the  first 


58  ARIZONA'S  YESTERDAY 

cattle  having  arrived  in  charge  of  a  hungry  lot  of 
Texan  cowpunchers,  and  everyone  was  making 
money.  I  set  up  my  little  lunch  counter,  charged 
seventy-five  cents,  or  "six-bits"  in  the  language  of 
the  West,  for  a  lunch  consisting  of  a  cup  of  coffee 
and  a  sandwich,  and  speedily  had  all  the  customers  I 
could  handle.  For  forty  consecutive  nights  I  made  a 
clear  profit  of  over  fifty  dollars  each  night.  Those 
sandwiches  were  a  mint.  And  they  were  worth  what 
I  charged  for  them,  too,  for  bacon,  ham,  coffee  and 
the  other  things  were  'way  up,  the  three  mentioned 
being  fifty  or  sixty  cents  a  pound  for  a  very  indiffer 
ent  quality. 

Sometimes  I  had  a  long  line  waiting  to  buy 
lunches,  and  all  the  time  I  ran  that  lunch  stand  I 
never  had  one  "kick"  at  the  prices  or  the  grub 
offered.  Those  cowboys  were  well  supplied  with 
money,  and  they  were  more  than  willing  to  spend  it. 
Charlie  Brown  was  making  his  fortune  fast. 

After  I  quit  Brown's  employ,  John  McGee — the 
same  man  who  now  is  secretary  of  the  Arizona  Pio 
neers'  Historical  Society  and  a  well-known  resident 
of  Tucson — hired  myself  and  another  man  to  do 
assessment  work  on  the  old  Salero  mine,  which  had 
been  operated  before  the  war.  Our  conveyance  was 
an  old  ambulance  owned  by  Lord  &  Williams,  who, 
as  I  have  said,  kept  the  only  store  and  the  postoffice 
in  Tucson.  The  outfit  was  driven  by  "Old"  Bill" 
Sniffen,  who  will  doubtless  be  remembered  by  many 
Arizona  pioneers.  We  picked  up  on  the  way  "Old 


THROUGH  MEXICO  TO  ARIZONA  59 

Man"  Benedict,  another  familiar  character,  who  kept 
the  stage  station  and  ranch  at  Sahuarita,  where  the 
Twin  Buttes  Railroad  now  has  a  station  and  branch 
to  some  mines,  and  where  a  smelter  is  located.  We 
were  paid  ten  dollars  per  day  for  our  work  and  re 
turned  safely  to  Tucson. 

I  spoke  of  Lord  &  Williams'  store  just  now. 
When  in  the  city  of  Tucson  recently  I  saw  that  Mr. 
Corbett  has  his  tin  shop  where  the  old  store  and  post- 
office  was  once.  I  recognized  only  two  other  build 
ings  as  having  existed  in  pioneer  days,  although 
there  may  be  more.  One  was  the  old  church  of 
San  Augustine  and  the  other  was  part  of  the  Orn- 
dorff  Hotel,  where  Levin  had  his  saloon.  There 
were  more  saloons  than  anything  else  in  Tucson  in 
the  old  days,  and  the  pueblo  richly  earned  its  repu 
tation,  spread  broadcast  all  over  the  world,  as  being 
one  of  the  "toughest"  places  on  the  American 
frontier. 

Tucson  was  on  the  boom  just  then.  Besides  the 
first  shipment  of  cattle,  and  the  influx  of  cowboys 
from  Texas  previously  mentioned,  the  Territorial 
capital  had  just  been  moved  to  Tucson  from  Pres- 
cott.  It  was  afterwards  moved  back  again  to  Pres- 
cott,  and  subsequently  to  the  new  tow*n  of  Phoenix; 
but  more  of  that  later. 

After  successfully  concluding  the  assessment  work 
and  returning  to  Tucson  to  be  paid  off  by  McGee  I 
decided  to  move  again,  and  this  time  chose  Wicken- 
burg,  a  little  place  between  Phoenix  and  Prescott, 


60  ARIZONA'S  YESTERDAY 

and  one  of  the  pioneer  towns  of  the  Territory. 
West  of  Wickenburg  on  the  Colorado  River  was 
another  settlement  named  Ehrenberg,  after  a  man 
who  deserves  a  paragraph  to  himself. 

Herman  Ehrenberg  was  a  civil  engineer  and  sci 
entist  of  exceptional  talents  who  engaged  in  mining 
in  the  early  days  of  Arizona  following  the  occupa 
tion  of  the  Territory  by  the  Americans.  He  was  of 
German  birth  and,  coming  at  an  early  age  to  the 
United  States,  made  his  way  to  New  Orleans,  where 
he  enlisted  in  the  New  Orleans  Grays  when  war 
broke  out  between  Mexico  and  Texas.  After  serv 
ing  in  the  battles  of  Goliad  and  Fanning' s  Defeat  he 
returned  to  Germany  and  wrote  and  lectured  for 
some  time  on  Texas  and  its  resources.  Soon  after 
the  publication  of  his  book  on  Texas  he  returned  to 
the  United  States  and  at  St.  Louis,  in  1840,  he 
joined  a  party  crossing  to  Oregon.  From  that  Ter 
ritory  he  went  to  the  Sandwich  Islands  and  for  some 
years  wandered  among  the  islands  of  the  Polyne 
sian  Archipelago,  returning  to  California  in  time  to 
join  General  Fremont  in  the  latter's  attempt  to  free 
California  from  Mexican  rule.  After  the  Gadsden 
Purchase  he  moved  to  Arizona,  where,  after  years 
of  occupation  in  mining  and  other  industries,  he  was 
killed  by  a  Digger  Indian  at  Dos  Palmas  in  South 
ern  California.  The  town  of  Ehrenberg  was  named 
after  him.* 


*This  information  relative  to  Ehrenberg  is  taken  largely 
from  The  History  of  Arizona;  De  Long,  1905. 


STAGE  DRIVER'S  LUCK 

God,  men  call  Destiny:  Hear  thee  my  prayer! 

Grant  that  life's  secret  for  e'er  shall  be  kept. 
Wiser  than  mine  is  thy  will;  I  dare 

Not  dust  where  thy  broom  hath  swept. 

— WOON. 

I  HAVE  said  that  Wickenburg  was  a  small  place 
half-way  between  Phoenix  and  Fresco tt,  but 
that  is  not  quite  right.  Wickenburg  was  sit 
uated  between  Prescott  and  the  valley  of  the  Salt 
River,  in  the  fertile  midst  of  which  the  foundation 
stones  of  the  future  capital  of  Arizona  had  yet  to 
be  laid.  To  be  sure,  there  were  a  few  shacks  on  the 
site,  and  a  few  ranchers  in  the  valley,  but  the  city 
of  Phoenix  had  yet  to  blossom  forth  from  the  wil 
derness.  I  shall  find  occasion  later  to  speak  of  the 
birth  of  Phoenix,  however. 

When  I  arrived  in  Wickenburg  from  Tucson — 
and  the  journey  was  no  mean  affair,  involving,  as 
it  did,  a  ride  over  desert  and  mountains,  both  of 
which  were  crowded  with  hostile  Apaches — I  went 
to  Work  as  stage  driver  for  the  company  that  oper 
ated  stages  out  of  Wickenburg  to  Ehrenberg,  Pres 
cott  and  other  places,  including  Florence  which  was 
just  then  beginning  to  be  a  town. 

Stage  driving  in  Arizona  in  the  pioneer  days  was 
a  dangerous,  difficult,  and  consequently  high-priced 


62  ARIZONA'S  YESTERDAY 

job.  The  Indians  were  responsible  for  this  in  the 
main,  although  white  highwaymen  became  some 
what  numerous  later  on.  Sometimes  there  would  be 
a  raid,  the  driver  would  be  killed,  and  the  stage 
would  not  depart  again  for  some  days,  the  company 
being  unable  to  find  a  man  to  take  the  reins.  The 
stages  were  large  and  unwieldy,  but  strongly  built. 
They  had  to  be  big  enough  to  hold  off  raiders  should 
they  attack.  Every  stage  usually  carried,  besides 
the  driver,  two  company  men  who  went  heavily 
armed  and  belted  around  with  numerous  cartridges. 
One  sat  beside  the  driver  on  the  box-seat.  In  the 
case  of  the  longer  stage  trips  two  or  three  men 
guarded  the  mail.  Very  few  women  traveled  in 
those  days — in  fact,  there  were  not  many  white 
women  in  the  Territory  and  those  who  did  travel 
usually  carried  some  masculine  protector  with  them. 
A  man  had  to  be  a  good  driver  to  drive  a  stage,  too, 
for  the  heavy  brakes  were  not  easily  manipulated 
and  there  w'ere  some  very  bad  stretches  of  road. 

Apropos  of  what  I  have  just  said  about  stage 
drivers  being  slain,  and  the  difficulty  sometimes  ex 
perienced  in  getting  men  to  take  their  places,  I  re 
member  that  on  certain  occasions  I  wiould  take  the 
place  of  the  mail  driver  from  Tucson  to  Apache 
Pass,  north  of  where  Douglas  now  is — the  said  mail 
driver  having  been  killed — get  fifty  dollars  for  the 
trip  and  blow  it  all  in  before  I  started  for  fear  I 
might  not  otherwise  get  a  chance  to  spend  it. 

The  stage  I  drove  for  this  Wickenburg  company 


STAGE  DRIVER'S  LUCK  63 

was  one  that  ran  regular  trips  out  of  Wickenburg. 
Several  trips  passed  without  much  occurring  worthy 
of  note;  and  then  on  one  trip  I  fell  off  the. box,  injur 
ing  my  ankle:  f  When  J  arrived  back  in  Wickenburg 
I  was  told  by  Manager  Pierson  of  the  company  that 
I  would  be  relieved  frorrr driving  the  stage  because 
my  foot  was  not  strong  enough  to  work  the  heavy 
brakes,  and  would  be  given  instead  the  buckboard 
to  drive  to  Florence  and  back  on  postofrice  business. 

The  next  trip  the  stage  made  out  of  Wickenburg, 
therefore,  I  remained  behind.  A  few  miles  from 
town  the  stage  was  held  up  by  an  overwhelming 
force  of  Apaches,  the  driver  and  all  save  two  of  the 
passengers  massacred,  and  the  contents  looted.  A 
woman  named  Moll  Shepherd,  going  back  East 
with  a  large  sum  of  money  in  her  possession,  and  a 
man  named  Kruger,  escaped  the  Indians,  hid  in  the 
hills  and  were  the  only  two  who  survived  to  tell  the 
story  of  what  has  gone  down  into  history  as  the 
famous  "Wickenburg  Stage  Massacre."  I  shudder 
now  to  think  how  nearly  I  might  have  been  on  the 
box  on  that  fatal  trip. 

I  was  not  entirely  to  escape  the  Apaches,  however. 
On  the  first  return  trip  from  Florence  to  Wicken 
burg  with  the  buckboard,  while  I  was  congratulating 
myself  and  thanking  my  lucky  stars  for  the  accident 
to  my  ankle,  Apaches  "jumped"  the  buckboard  and 
gave  me  and  my  one  passenger,  Charlie  Block  of 
Wickenburg,  a  severe  tussle  for  it.  We  beat  them 
off  in  the  end,  owing  to  superior  marksmanship,  and 


64  ARIZONA'S  YESTERDAY 

arrived  in  Wickenburg  unhurt.  Block  was  part 
owner  of  the  Barnett  and  Block  store  in  Wickenburg 
and  was  a  well-known  man  in  that  section. 

After  this  incident  I  determined  to  quit  driving 
stages  and  buckboards  and,  casting  about  for  some 
newt  line  of  endeavor,  went  for  the  first  time  into  the 
restaurant  business  for  myself.  The  town  needed 
an  establishment  of  the  kind  I  put  up,  and  as  I  had 
always  been  a  good  cook  I  cleaned  up  handsomely, 
especially  as  it  was  while  I  was  running  the  restau 
rant  that  Miner  started  his  notorious  stampede, 
when  thousands  of  gold-mad  men  followed  a  will-o'- 
the-wisp  trail  to  fabulously  rich  diggings  which 
turned  out  to  be  entirely  mythical. 

It  was  astonishing  how  little  was  required  in  those 
days  to  start  a  stampede.  A  stranger  might  come  in 
town  with  a  "poke"  of  gold  dust.  He  would  nat 
urally  be  asked  where  he  had  made  the  strike.  As 
a  matter  of  fact,  he  probably  had  washed  a  dozen 
different  streams  to  get  the  poke-full,  but  under  the 
influence  of  liquor  he  might  reply:  "Oh,  over  on 
the  San  Carlos/'  or  the  San  Pedro,  or  some  other 
stream.  It  did  not  require  that  he  should  state  how 
rich  the  streak  was,  or  whether  it  had  panned  out. 
All  that  was  necessary  to  start  a  mad  rush  in  the 
direction  he  had  designated  was  the  sight  of  his  gold 
and  the  magic  word  "streak."  Many  were  the  trails 
that  led  to  death  or  bitter  disappointment,-  in  Ari 
zona's  early  days. 

Most  of  the  old  prospectors  did  not  see  the  results 


STAGE  DRIVER'S  LUCK  65 

of  their  own  "strikes"  nor  share  in  the  profits  from 
them  after  their  first  "poke"  had  been  obtained. 
There  was  old  John  Waring,  for  instance,  who 
found  gold  on  a  tributary  of  the  Colorado  and  blew 
into  Arizona  City,  got  drunk  and  told  of  his  find: 

"Gold— Gold.  .  .  .  Lots  'v  it !"  he  informed 
them,  drunkenly,  incoherently,  and  woke  up  the  next 
morning  to  find  that  half  the  town  had  disappeared 
in  the  direction  of  his  claim.  He  rushed  to  the  reg 
istry  office  to  register  his  claim,  which  he  had  fool 
ishly  forgotten  to  do  the  night  before.  He  found  it 
already  registered.  Some  unscrupulous  rascal  had 
filched  his  secret,  even  to  the  exact  location  of  his 
claim,  from  the  aged  miner  and  had  got  ahead  of 
him  in  registering  it.  No  claim  is  really  legal  until 
it  is  registered,  although  in  the  mining  camps  of  the 
old  days  it  was  a  formality  often  dispensed  with, 
since  claim  jumpers  met  a  prompt  and  drastic  pun 
ishment. 

In  many  other  instances  the  big  mining  men  gob 
bled  up  the  smaller  ones,  especially  at  a  later  period, 
when  most  of  the  big  mines  were  grouped  under  a 
few  large  managements,  with  consequent  great  ad 
vantage  over  their  smaller  competitors. 

Indeed,  there  is  comparatively  little  incentive  now 
for  a  prospector  to  set  out  in  Arizona,  because  if  he 
chances  to  stumble  on  a  really  rich  prospect,  and 
attempts  to  work  it  himself,  he  is  likely  to  be  so 
browbeaten  that  he  is  finally  forced  to  sell  out  to 
some  large  concern.  There  are  only  a  few  smelters 


66  ARIZONA'S  YESTERDAY 

in  or  near  the  State  and  these  are  controlled  by  large 
mining  companies.  Very  well;  we  will  suppose  a 
hypothetical  case : 

A,  being  a  prospector,  finds  a  copper  mine.  He 
says  to  himself:  "Here's  a  good  property;  it  ought 
to  make  me  rich.  I  won't  sell  it,  I'll  hold  on  to  it 
and  work  it  myself." 

So  far,  so  good. 

A  starts  in  to  work  his  mine.  He  digs  therefrom 
considerable  rich  ore.  And  now  a  problem  presents 
itself. 

He  has  no  concentrator,  no  smelter  of  his  own. 
He  cannot  afford  to  build  one;  therefore  it  is  per 
fectly  obvious  that  he  cannot  crush  his  own  ore.  He 
must,  then,  send  it  elsewhere  to  be  smelted,  and  to 
do  this  must  sell  his  ore  to  the  smelter. 

In  the  meantime  a  certain  big  mining  company 
has  investigated  A's  find  and  has  seen  that  it  is  rich. 
The  company  desires  the  property,  as  it  desires  all 
other  rich  properties.  It  offers  to  buy  the  mine  for 
a  sum  far  below  its  actual  value.  Naturally,  the 
finder  refuses. 

But  he  must  smelt  his  ore.  And  to  smelt  it  he 
finds  he  is  compelled  to  sell  it  to  a  smelter  that  is 
controlled  by  the  mining  company  whose  offer  he 
has  refused.  He  sends  his  ore  to  the  smelter.  Back 
comes  the  quotation  for  his  product,  at  a  price  ridic 
ulously  low.  "That's  what  we'll  give  you,"  says  the 
company,  through  its  proxy  the  smelter,  "take  it  or 
leave  it,"  or  w'ords  to  that  effect. 


STAGE  DRIVER'S  LUCK  67 

Now,  what  can  A  do?  Nothing  at  all.  He  must 
either  sell  his  ore  at  an  actual  loss  or  sell  his  mine 
to  the  company.  Naturally,  he  does  the  latter,  and 
at  a  figure  he  finds  considerably  lower  than  the  first 
offer.  The  large  concern  has  him  where  it  wanted 
him  and  it  snuffs  out  his  dreams  of  wealth  and  pros 
perity  effectively. 

These  observations  are  disinterested.  I  have 
never,  curiously  enough,  heeded  the  insistent  call  of 
the  diggings;  I  have  never  "washed  a  pan,"  and  my 
name  has  never  appeared  on  the  share-list  of  a  mine. 
And  this,  too,  has  been  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  often 
I  have  been  directly  in  the  paths  of  the  various  ex 
citements.  I  have  been  always  wise  enough  to  see 
that  the  men  who  made  rapid  fortunes  in  gold  were 
not  the  men  who  stampeded  head-over-heels  to  the 
diggings,  but  the  men  who  stayed  behind  and 
opened  up  some  kind  of  business  which  the  gold- 
seekers  would  patronize.  These  were  the  reapers  of 
the  harvest,  and  there  was  little  risk  in  their  game, 
although  the  stakes  were  high. 

I  have  said  that  I  never  owned  a  mining  share. 
Well,  I  never  did;  but  once  I  came  close  to  owning 
a  part  share  in  what  is  now"  the  richest  copper  mine 
on  earth — a  mine  that,  with  the  Anaconda  in  Mon 
tana,  almost  determines  the  price  of  raw  copper.  I 
will  tell  you  the  tale. 

Along  in  the  middle  seventies — I  think  it  was  '74, 
I  was  partner  with  a  man  named  George  Stevens 
at  Eureka  Springs,  west  of  Fort  Thomas  in  the 


68  ARIZONA'S  YESTERDAY 

Apache  country,  a  trading  station  for  freighters. 
We  were  owners  of  the  trading  station,  which  was 
some  distance  south  of  where  the  copper  cities  of 
Globe  and  Miami  are  now;  situated.  We  made  very 
good  money  at  the  station  and  Stevens  and  I  decided 
to  have  some  repairs  and  additions  built  to  the  store. 
We  looked  around  for  a  mason  and  finally  hired 
one  named  George  Warren,  a  competent  man  whose 
only  fault  was  a  fondness  for  the  cup  that  cheers. 

Warren  was  also  a  prospector  of  some  note  and 
had  made  several  rich  strikes.  It  was  known  that, 
while  he  had  never  found  a  bonanza,  wherever  he 
announced  "pay  dirt"  there  "pay  dirt"  invariably 
was  to  be  found.  In  other  words,  he  had  a  reputa 
tion  for  reliability  that  was  valuable  to  him  and  of 
which  he  was  intensely  vain.  He  was  a  man  with 
"hunches,"  and  hunches  curiously  enough,  that 
almost  always  made  good. 

These  hunches  were  more  or  less  frequent  with 
Warren.  They  usually  came  when  he  was  broke 
for,  like  all  prospectors,  Warren  found  it  highly 
inconvenient  ever  to  be  the  possessor  of  a  large  sum 
of  money  for  any  length  of  time.  He  had  been 
known  to  say  to  a  friend :  "I've  got  a  hunch !"  dis 
appear,  and  in  a  week  or  two,  return  with  a  liberal 
amount  of  dust.  Between  hunches  he  worked  at  his 
trade. 

When  he  had  completed  his  work  on  the  store  at 
Eureka  Springs  for  myself  and  Stevens,  Warren 
drew  me  aside  one  night  and,  very  confidentially,  in- 


STAGE  DRIVER'S  LUCK  69 

formed  me  that  he  had  a  hunch.  "You're  wel 
come  to  it,  George,"  I  said,  and,  something  calling 
me  away  at  that  moment,  I  did  not  hear  of  him 
again  until  I  returned  from  New  Fort  Grant, 
whither  I  had  gone  with  a  load  of  hay  for  which  we 
had  a  valuable  contract  with  the  government.  Then 
Stevens  informed  me  that  Warren  had  told  tym  of 
his  hunch,  had  asked  for  a  grub-stake,  and,  on  being 
given  one,  had  departed  in  a  southerly  direction  with 
the  information  that  he  expected  to  make  a  find  over 
in  the  Dos  Cabezas  direction. 

He  was  gone  several  weeks,  and  then  one  day 
Stevens  said  to  me,  quietly : 

"John,  Warren's  back." 

"Yes?"  I  answered.     "Did  he  make  a  strike?" 

"He  found  a  copper  mine,"  said  Stevens. 

"Oh,  only  copper!"  I  laughed.  "That  hunch  sys 
tem  of  his  must  have  got  tarnished  by  this  time, 
then!" 

You  see,  copper  at  that  time  was  worth  next  to 
nothing.  There  was  no  big  smelter  in  the  Territory 
and  it  was  almost  impossible  to  sell  the  ore.  So  it 
was  natural  enough  that  neither  myself  nor  Stevens 
should  feel  particularly  jubilant  over  Warren's 
strike.  One  day  I  thought  to  ask  Warren  whether 
he  had  christened  his  mine  yet,  as  was  the  custom. 

"I'm  going  to  call  it  the  'Copper  Queen,'  "  he  said. 

I  laughed  at  him  for  the  name,  but  admitted  it  a 
good  one.  That  mine  today,  reader,  is  one  of  the 
greatest  copper  properties  in  the  world.  It  is  worth 


70  ARIZONA'S  YESTERDAY 

about  a  billion  dollars.  The  syndicate  that  owns  it 
owns  as  well  a  good  slice  of  Arizona. 

"Syndicate  ?"  I  hear  you  ask.  "Why,  what  about 
Warren,  the  man  who  found  the  mine,  and  Stevens, 
the  man  who  grub-staked  him  ?" 

Ah !  What  about  them !  George  Stevens  bet  his 
share  of  the  mine  against  $75  at  a  horse  race  one 
day,  and  lost;  and  George  Warren,  the  man  with 
the  infallible  hunch,  died  years  back  in  squalid 
misery,  driven  there  by  drink  and  the  memory  of 
many  empty  discoveries.  The  syndicate  that  ob 
tained  the  mine  from  Warren  gave  him  a  pension 
amply  sufficient  for  his  needs,  I  believe.  It  is  but  fair 
to  state  that  had  the  mine  been  retained  by  Warren 
the  probabilities  are  it  would  never  have  been  devel 
oped,  for  Warren,  like  other  old  prospectors,  was  a 
genius  at  finding  pay-streaks,  but  a  failure  when  it 
came  to  exploiting  them. 

That,  reader,  is  the  true  story  of  the  discovery  of 
the  Copper  Queen,  the  mine  that  has  made  a  dozen 
fortunes  and  twro  cities — Bisbee  and  Douglas.  If  I 
had  gone  in  with  Stevens  in  grub-staking  poor  War 
ren  would  I,  too,  I  wonder,  have  sold  my  share  for 
some  foolish  trifle  or  recklesssly  gambled  it  away? 
I  winder !......  Probably,  I  should. 


A  FRONTIER  BUSINESS  MAN 

"The  chip  of  chisel,  hum  of  saw, 

The  stones  of  progress  laid; 
The  city  grew,  and,  helped  by  its  law, 

Men  many  fortunes  made." 

—Song  of  the  City,  by  T.  BURGESS. 

A  PHOENIX  man  was  in  Patagonia  recently 
and — I  don't  say  he  was  a  typical  Phoenix 
man — commented  in  a  superior  tone  on  the 
size  of  the  town. 

"Why,"  he  said,  as  if  it  clinched  the  argument, 
"Phoenix  would  make  ten  Patagonias." 

"And  then  some,"  I  assented,  "but,  sonny,  I  built 
the  third  house  in  Phoenix.  Did  you  know  that? 
And  I  burnt  Indian  grain  fields  in  the  Salt  River 
Valley  long  before  anyone  ever  thought  of  building 
a  city  there.  Even  a  big  city  has  had  some  time  to 
be  a  small  one." 

That  settled  it;  the  Phoenix  gentleman  said  no 
more. 

I  told  him  only  the  exact  truth  when  I  said  that  I 
built  the  third  house  in  Phoenix. 

After  I  had  started  the  Wickenburg  restaurant 
came  rumors  that  a  new  city  was  to  be  started  in  the 
fertile  Salt  River  Valley,  between  Sacaton  and  Pres- 
cott,  some  forty  or  fifty  miles  north  of  the  former 
place.  Stories  came  that  men  had  tilled  the  land  of 


ARIZONA'S  YESTERDAY 

the  valley  and  had  found  that  it  would  grow  almost 
anything,  as,  indeed,  it  has  since  been  found  that 
any  land  in  Arizona  will  do,  providing  the  water  is 
obtained  to  irrigate  it.  One  of  Arizona's  most  won 
derful  phenomena  is  the  sudden  greening  of  the 
sandy  stretches  after  a  heavy  rain.  One  day  every 
thing  is  a  sun-dried  brown,  as  far  as  the  eye  can  see. 
Every  arroyo  is  dry,  the  very  cactus  seems  shriveled 
and  the  deep  blue  of  the  sky  gives  no  promise  of  any 
relief.  Then,  in  the  night,  thunder-clouds  roll  up 
from  the  painted  hills,  a  tropical  deluge  resembling 
a  cloud-burst  falls,  and  in  the  morning* — lo!  where 
was  yellow  sand  parched  from  months  of  drought, 
is  now  sprouting  green  grass!  It  is  a  marvelous 
transformation — a  miracle  never  to  be  forgotten  by 
one  who  has  seen  it. 

However,  irrigation  is  absolutely  necessary  to  till 
the  soil  in  most  districts  of  Arizona,  though  in  some 
sections  of  the  State  dry  farming  has  been  success 
fully  resorted  to.  It  has  been  said  that  Arizona  has 
more  rivers  and  less  wiater  than  any  state  in  the 
Union,  and  this  is  true.  Many  of  these  are  rivers 
only  in  the  rainy  season,  which  in  the  desert  gen 
erally  comes  about  the  middle  of  July  and  lasts  until 
early  fall.  Others  are  what  is  known  as  "sinking 
rivers,"  flowing  above  ground  for  parts  of  their 
courses,  and  as  frequently  sinking  below  the  sand, 
to  reappear  further  along.  The  Sonoita,  upon  which 
Patagonia  is  situated,  is  one  of  these  "disappearing 
rivers,"  the  water  coming  up  out  of  the  sand  about 


A  FRONTIER  BUSINESS  MAN  73 

half  a  mile  from  the  main  street.  The  big  rivers, 
the  Colorado,  the  Salt,  the  upper  Gila  and  the  San 
Pedro,  run  the  year  around,  and  there  are  several 
smaller  streams  in  the  more  fertile  districts  that  do 
the  same  thing. 

The  larger  part  of  the  Arizona  "desert"  is  not 
barren  sand,  but  fertile  silt  and  adobe,  needing  only 
water  to  make  of  it  the  best  possible  soil  for  farming 
purposes.  Favored  by  a  mild  winter  climate  the 
Salt  River  Valley  can  be  made  to  produce  crops  of 
some  kind  each  month  in  the  year — fruits  in  the  fall, 
vegetables  in  the  winter  season,  grains  in  spring  and 
alfalfa,  the  principal  crop,  throughout  the  summer. 
A  succession  of  crops  may  oftentimes  be  grown  dur 
ing  the  year  on  one  farm,  so  that  irrigated  lands  in 
Arizona  yield  several  times  the  produce  obtainable 
in  the  Eastern  states.  Alfalfa  may  be  cut  six  or 
seven  times  a  year  with  a  yield  of  as  much  as  ten 
tons  to  the  acre.  The  finest  Egyptian  cotton,  free 
from  the  boll  weevil  scourge,  may  also  be  growln 
successfully  and  is  fast  becoming  one  of  the  staple 
products  of  the  State.  Potatoes,  strawberries,  pears, 
peaches  and  melons,  from  temperate  climates;  and 
citrus  fruits,  sorghum  grains  and  date  palms  from 
subtropical  regions,  give  some  idea  of  the  range  of 
crops  possible  here.  Many  farmers  from  the  East 
ern  and  Southern  states  and  from  California,  find 
ing  this  out,  began  to  take  up  land,  dig  irrigating 
ditches  and  make  homes  in  Arizona. 

Fifteen  or  twenty  pioneers  had  gone  to  the  Salt 


74  ARIZONA'S  YESTERDAY 

River  Valley  while  I  was  at  Wickenburg  and  there 
had  taken  up  quarter  sections  on  which  they  raised, 
chiefly,  barley,  wheat,  corn  and  hay.  A  little  fruit 
was  also  experimented  in.  Some  of  the  men  who 
were  on  the  ground  at  the  beginning  I  remember  to 
have  been  Dennis  and  Murphy,  Tom  Gray,  Jack 
Walters,  Johnny  George,  George  Monroe,  Joe  Fugit, 
Jack  Swilling,  Patterson,  the  Parkers,  the  Sorrels, 
the  Fenters  and  a  few  others  whose  names  I  do  not 
recall.  A  towlnsite  had  been  laid  out,  streets  sur 
veyed,  and  before  long  it  became  known  that  the 
Territory  had  a  new  city,  the  name  of  which  was 
Phoenix. 

The  story  of  the  way  in  which  the  name  "Phoe 
nix"  was  given  to  the  city  that  in  future  days  was 
to  become  the  metropolis  of  the  State,  is  interesting. 
When  the  Miner  excitement  was  over  I  decided  to 
move  to  the  new  Salt  River  townsite,  and  soon  after 
my  arrival  there  attended  a  meeting  of  citizens  gath 
ered  together  to  name  the  new  city.  Practically 
every  settler  in  the  Valley  was  at  this  meeting, 
which  was  destined  to  become  historic. 

Among  those  present  was  a  Frenchman  named 
Barrel  Dupper,  or  Du  Perre,  as  his  name  has  some 
times  been  written,  who  was  a  highly  educated  man 
and  had  lived  in  Arizona  for  a  number  of  years. 
When  the  question  of  naming  the  townsite  came  up 
several  suggestions  were  offered,  among  them  being 
''Salt  City,"  "Aricropolis,"  and  others.  Dupper 
rose  to  his  feet  and  suggested  that  the  city  be  called 


A  FRONTIER  BUSINESS  MAN  75 

Phoenix,  because,  he  explained,  the  Phoenix  was  a 
bird  of  beautiful  plumage  and  exceptional  voice, 
which  lived  for  five  hundred  years  and  then,  after 
chanting  its  death-song,  prepared  a  charnel-house 
for  itself  and  was  cremated,  after  which  a  new  and 
glorified  bird  arose  from  the  ashes  to  live  a  magnifi 
cent  existence  forever.  When  Dupper  finished  his 
suggestion  and  explanation  the  meeting  voted  on  the 
names  and  the  Frenchman's  choice  was  decided 
upon.  "  Phoenix"  it  has  been  ever  since. 

Before  I  had  been  in  Phoenix  many  days  I  com 
menced  the  building  of  a  restaurant,  which  I  named 
the  Capital  Restaurant.  The  capital  was  then  at 
Prescott,  having  been  moved  from  Tucson,  but  my 
name  evidently  must  have  been  prophetic,  for  the 
capital  city  of  Arizona  is  now  none  other  than  Phoe 
nix,  which  at  the  present  day  probably  has  the  larg 
est  population  in  the  State — over  twenty  thousand. 

Soon  I  gained  other  interests  in  Phoenix  besides 
the  restaurant.  The  Capital  made  me  much  money, 
and  I  invested  what  I  did  not  spend  in  "having  a 
good  time,"  in  various  other  enterprises.  I  went 
into  the  butcher  business  with  Steel  &  Coplin.  I 
built  the  first  bakery  in  Phoenix.  I  staked  two  men 
to  a  ranch  north  of  the  city,  from  which  I  later  on 
proceeded  to  flood  the  Territory  with  sweet  potatoes. 
I  was  the  first  man,  by  the  way,  to  grow  swieet  pota 
toes  in  Arizona.  I  built  a  saloon  and  dance  hall, 
and  in  this,  naturally,  was  my  quickest  turnover. 

I  am  not  an  apologist,  least  of  all  for  myself,  and 


76  ARIZONA'S  YESTERDAY 

as  this  is  the  true  story  of  a  life  I  believe  to  have 
been  exceptionally  varied  I  think  that  in  it  should 
be  related  the  things  I  did  which  might  be  consid 
ered  "bad"  nowadays,  as  well  as  the  things  I  did 
which,  by  the  same  token,  present-day  civilization 
may  consider  "good." 

I  may  relate,  therefore,  that  for  some  years  I  was 
known  as  the  largest  liquor  dealer  in  the  Territory, 
as  well  as  one  of  the  shrewdest  hands  at  cards. 
Although  I  employed  men  to  do  the  work,  often 
players  would  insist  on  my  dealing  the  monte  deck 
or  laying  down  the  faro  lay-out  for  them.  I  played 
for  big  stakes,  too — bigger  stakes  than  people  play 
for  nowadays  in  the  West.  Many  times  I  have  sat 
down  with  the  equivalent  of  thousands  of  dollars  in 
chips  and  played  them  all  away,  only  to  regain  them 
again  without  thinking  it  anything  particularly 
unusual.  As  games  go,  I  was  considered  "lucky" 
for  a  gambler.  Though  not  superstitious,  I  believed 
in  this  luck  of  mine,  and  this  is  probably  the 
reason  that  it  held  good  for  so  long.  If  of  late 
various  things,  chiefly  the  mining  depression,  have 
made  my  fortunes  all  to  the  bad,  I  am  no  man  to 
whine  at  the  inevitable.  I  can  take  my  ipecac  along 
with  the  next  man ! 

There  were  few  men  in  the  old  days  in  Phoenix, 
or,  indeed,  the  entire  Territory,  who  did  not  drink 
liquor,  and  lots  of  it.  In  fact,  it  may  be  "said  that 
the  entire  fabric  of  the  Territory  was  constructed 
on  liquor.  The  pioneers  were  most  of  them  whiskey 


THE  OLD  WARD  HOMESTEAD,  WHERE  CADY  KEPT  STORE 
DURING  THE  BUILDING  OF  THE  SANTA  FE  RAILROAD 


A  FRONTIER  BUSINESS  MAN  77 

fiends,  as  were  the  gamblers.  By  this  I  am  not  de 
fending  the  liquor  traffic.  I  have  sold  more  liquor 
than  any  man  in  Arizona  over  the  bar  in  my  life 
time,  but  I  voted  dry  at  the  last  election  and  I  adhere 
to  the  belief  that  a  whiskey-less  Arizona  will  be  the 
best  for  our  children  and  our  children's  children. 

During  my  residence  in  Phoenix  Barrel  Dupper, 
the  man  who  had  christened  the  town,  became  one 
of  my  best  friends.  He  kept  the  post  and  trading 
store  at  Desert  Station,  at  which  place  was  the 
only  water  to  be  found  between  Phoenix  and  Wick- 
enburg,  if  I  remember  correctly.  The  station  made 
him  wealthy.  Dupper  was  originally  Count  Du 
Perre,  and  came  of  a  noted  aristocratic  French 
family.  His  forefathers  were,  I  believe,  prominent 
in  the  court  of  Louis  XIV.  When  a  young  man  he 
committed  some  foolhardy  act  in  France  and  was 
banished  by  his  people,  who  sent  him  a  monthly 
remittance  on  condition  that  he  get  as  far  away  from 
his  home  as  he  could,  and  stay  there.  To  fulfill  the 
terms  of  this  agreement  Du  Perre  came  to  Arizona 
among  the  early  pioneers  and  soon  proved  that  he 
had  the  stuff  of  a  real  man  in  him.  He  learned 
English  and  Americanized  his  name  to  Dupper.  He 
engaged  in  various  enterprises  and  finally  started 
Desert  Station,  where  he  made  his  fortune. 

He  was  a  curious  character  as  he  became  older. 
Sometimes  he  would  stay  away  from  Phoenix  for 
several  months  and  then  one  day  he  would  appear 
with  a  few  thousand  dollars,  more  or  less,  spend 


78  ARIZONA'S  YESTERDAY 

every  cent  of  it  in  treating  the  boys  in  my  house  and 
"blow  back"  home  again  generally  in  my  debt.  He 
used  to  sing  La  Marseillaise — it  was  the  only  song 
he  knew — and  after  the  first  few  drinks  would  sol 
emnly  mount  a  table,  sing  a  few  verses  of  the  mag 
nificent  revolutionary  song,  call  on  me  to  do  like 
wise,  and  then  "treat  the  house."  Often  he  did  this 
several  times  each  night,  and  as  "treating  the  house" 
invariably  cost  at  least  thirty  dollars  and  he  was  an 
inveterate  gambler,  it  will  be  seen  that  in  one  way  or 
another  I  managed  to  secure  considerable  of  old 
Dupper's  fortune.  His  partiality  to  the  Marseillaise 
leads  me  to  the  belief  that  he  was  banished  for  par 
ticipation  in  one  of  the  French  revolutions;  but  this 
I  cannot  state  positively. 

On  one  occasion  I  remember  that  I  was  visiting 
with  Dupper  and  we  made  a  trip  together  some 
where,  Dupper  leaving  his  cook  in  charge.  When 
we  returned  nobody  noticed  us  and  I  happened  to 
look  through  a  window  before  entering  the  house. 
Hastily  I  beckoned  to  Dupper. 

The  Frenchman's  cook  was  sitting  on  his  bed 
with  a  pile  of  money — the  day's  takings — in  front 
of  him.  He  was  dividing  the  pile  into  two  halves. 
Taking  one  bill  off  the  pile  he  would  lay  it  to  one 
side  and  say: 

"This  is  for  Dupper." 

Then  he'd  take  the  next  bill,  lay  it  in  another  spot, 
and  say: 

"And  this  is  for  me." 


A  FRONTIER  BUSINESS  MAN  79 

We  watched  him  through  the  window  unnoticed 
until  he  came  to  the  last  ten-dollar  bill.  It  was  odd. 
The  cook  deliberated  a  few  moments  and  finally  put 
the  bill  on  top  of  the  pile  he  had  reserved  for  him 
self.  Then  Dupper,  whose  face  had  been  a  study  in 
emotions,  could  keep  still  no  longer. 

"Hey,  there!"  he  yelled,  "play  fair— play  fair! 
Divvy  up  that  ten  spot !" 

What  happened  afterwards  to  that  cook  I  don't 
remember.  But  Dupper  was  a  good  sport. 


VENTURES  AND  ADVENTURES 

Hush!   What  brooding  stillness  is  hanging  over  all? 
What's  this  talk  in  whispers,  and  that  placard  on 

the  wall? 

Aha!  I  see  it  now!   They're  going  to  hang  a  man! 
Judge  Lynch  is  on  the  ramparts  and  the  Laitfs  an 

"Also-Ran!"  — WOON. 

READER,  have  you  ever  seen  the  look  in  a 
man's  eyes  after  he  has  been  condemned  by 
that  Court  of  Last  Appeal — his  fellow-men  ? 
I  have,  many  times.     It  is  a  look  without  a  shadow 
of  hope  left,  a  look  of  dread  at  the  ferocity  of  the 
mob,  a  look  of  fear  at  what  is  to  come  afterwards; 
and  seldom  a  hint  of  defiance  lurks  in  such  a  man's 
expression. 

I  have  seen  and  figured  in  many  lynchings.  In 
the  old  days  they  were  the  inseparables,  the  Frontier 
and  Judge  Lynch.  If  a  white  man  killed  a  Mexican 
or  Indian  nothing  was  done,  except  perhaps  to  hold 
a  farce  of  a  trial  with  the  killer  in  the  end  turned 
loose;  and  if  a  white  man  killed  another  white  man 
there  was  seldom  much  outcry,  unless  the  case  was 
cold-blooded  murder  or  the  killer  was  already  unpop 
ular.  But  let  a  Mexican  or  an  Indian  lift  one  finger 
against  a  white  man  and  the  whole  strength  of  the 
Whites  was  against  him  in  a  moment;  he  was 
hounded  to  his  hole,  dragged  forth,  tried  by  a  com- 


VENTURES  AND  ADVENTURES  81 

mittee  of  citizens  over  whom  Judge  Lynch  sat  with 
awful  solemnity,  and  was  forthwith  hung. 

More  or  less  of  this  was  in  some  degree  necessary. 
The  killing  of  an  Apache  was  accounted  a  good  day's 
work,  since  it  probably  meant  that  the  murderer  of 
several  white  men  had  gone  to  his  doom.  To  kill  a 
Mexican  only  meant  that  another  "bad  hombre"  had 
gone  to  his  just  deserts. 

And  most  of  the  Mexicans  in  Arizona  in  the  early 
days  were  ''bad  hombres" — there  is  no  doubt  about 
that.  It  was  they  who  gave  the  Mexican  such  a  bad 
name  on  the  frontier,  and  it  was  they  who  first 
earned  the  title  "greaser."  They  were  a  murderous, 
treacherous  lot  of  rascals. 

In  the  Wickenburg  stage  massacre,  for  instance, 
it  was  known  that  several  Mexicans  were  involved — 
wood-choppers.  One  of  these  Mexicans  was  hunted 
for  weeks  and  was  caught  soon  after  I  arrived  in 
Phoenix.  I  was  running  my  dance  hall  when  a 
committee  of  citizens  met  in  a  mass-meeting  and 
decided  that  the  law  was  too  slow  in  its  working 
and  gave  the  Mexican  too  great  an  opportunity  to 
escape.  The  meeting  then  resolved  itself  into  a 
hanging  committee,  broke  open  the  jail,  seized  the 
prisoner  from  the  arms  of  the  sheriff  and  hung  him 
to  the  rafters  just  inside  the  jail  door.  That  done, 
they  returned  to  their  homes  and  occupations  satis 
fied  that  at  least  one  "Greaser"  had  not  evaded  the 
full  penalty  of  his  crimes. 

Soon  after  a    Mexican   arrived    in   town  with  a 


82  ARIZONA'S  YESTERDAY 

string  of  cows  to  sell.  Somebody  recognized  the 
cows  as  ones  that  had  belonged  to  a  rancher  named 
Patterson.  The  Mexican  was  arrested  by  citizens 
and  a  horseman  sent  out  to  investigate.  Patterson 
was  found  killed.  At  once,  and  with  little  ceremony, 
the  Mexican  with  the  cattle  was  "strung  up"  to  the 
cross  of  a  gatepost,  his  body  being  left  to  sway  in 
the  wind  until  somebody  came  along  with  sufficient 
decency  to  cut  it  down. 

Talking  about  lynchings,  reminds  me  of  an  inci> 
dent  that  had  almost  slipped  my  mind.  Before  I 
went  to  Wickenberg  from  Tucson  I  became  partners 
with  a  man  named  Robert  Swope  in  a  bar  and 
gambling  lay-out  in  a  little  place  named  Adamsville, 
a  few  miles  below  where  Florence  now  is  on  the 
Gila  River.  Swope  was  tending  bar  one  night  when 
an  American  shot  him  dead  and  got  away.  The 
murderer  was  soon  afterward  captured  in  Tucson 
and  lynched  in  company  with  twio  Mexicans  who 
were  concerned  in  the  murder  of  a  pawnbroker 

there. 

#     *     #     # 

In  Phoenix  I  married  my  first  wife,  whose  given 
name  was  Ruficia.  Soon  afterwards  I  moved  to 
Tucson,  where,  after  being  awarded  one  child,  I  had 
domestic  trouble  which  ended  in  the  courts.  My  wife 
finally  returned  to  Phoenix  and,  being  free  again, 
married  a  man  named  Murphy.  After  this  experi 
ence  I  determined  to  take  no  further  chances  with 
matrimony.  However,  I  needed  a  helpmate,  so  I 


VENTURES  AND  ADVENTURES  83 

solved  the  difficulty  by  marrying  Paola  Ortega  by 
contract  for  five  years.  Contract  marriages  were 
universally  recognized  and  indulged  in  in  the  West 
of  the  early  days.  My  relations  with  Paola  were 
eminently  satisfactory  until  the  expiration  of  the 
contract,  when  she  went  her  way  and  I  mine. 

Before  I  leave  the  subject  of  Phoenix  it  will  be 
well  to  mention  that  when  I  left  I  sold  all  my  prop 
erty  there,  consisting  of  some  twenty-two  lots,  all 
in  the  heart  of  the  city,  for  practically  a  song.  Six 
of  these  lots  were  situated  where  now  is  a  big 
planing  mill.  Several  lots  I  sold  to  a  German  for  a 
span  of  mules.  The  German  is  alive  today  and  lives 
in  Phoenix  a  Wealthy  man,  simply  because  he  had 
the  foresight  and  acumen  to  do  what  I  did  not  do — 
hang  on  to  his  real  estate.  If  I  had  kept  those 
twenty-two  lots  until  now,  without  doing  more  than 
simply  pay  my  taxes  on  them,  my  fortune  today 
would  be  comfortably  up  in  the  six  figures.  How 
ever,  I  sold  the  lots,  and  there's  no  use  crying  over 
spilled  milk.  Men  are  doing  today  all  over  the 
world  just  what  I  did  then. 

I  had  not  been  in  Tucson  long  before  I  built  there 
the  largest  saloon  and  dance-hall  in  the  Territory. 
Excepting  for  one  flyer  in  Florence,  which  I  shall 
speak  of  later  on,  this  was  to  be  my  last  venture  into 
the  liquor  business.  My  hall  was  modeled  after 
those  on  the  Barbary  Coast.  It  cost  "four-bits"  and 
drinks  to  dance,  and  the  dances  lasted  only  a  few 
minutes.  At  one  time  I  had  thirteen  Mexican  girls 


84  ARIZONA'S  YESTERDAY 

dancing  in  the  hall,  and  this  number  w*as  increased 
on  special  days  until  the  floor  was  crowded.  1 
always  did  good  business — so  good,  in  fact,  that 
jealousy  aroused  in  the  minds  of  my  rivals  finally 
forced  me  out.  Since  then,  as  I  have  said,  with  the 
single  Florence  exception,  I  have  not  been  in  the 
dance-hall  business,  excepting  that  I  now  have  at 
some  expense  put  a  ball-room  into  my  hotel  at  Pata 
gonia,  in  which  are  held  at  times  social  dances  which 
most  of  the  young  folk  of  the  county  attend,  the 
liquor  element  being  entirely  absent,  of  course.* 

Besides  paying  a  heavy  license  for  the  privilege 
of  selling  liquor  in  my  Tucson  dance  hall,  I  was 
compelled  every  morning,  in  addition,  to  pay  over 
$5  as  a  license  for  the  dance-hall  and  $1.50  col 
lector's  fees,  which,  if  not  paid  out  every  morning  as 
regularly  as  clockwork,  wbuld  have  threatened  my 
business.  I  did  not  complain  of  this  tax;  it  was  a 
fair  one  considering  the  volume  of  trade  I  did.  But 
my  patronage  grew  and  grew  until  there  came  a  day 
when  "Cady's  Place,"  as  it  was  known,  was  making 
more  money  for  its  owner  than  any  similar  estab 
lishment  in  Arizona.  The  saloon-keepers  in  Tucson 
became  inordinately  jealous  and  determined  to  put 
an  end  to  my  "luck,"  as  they  called  it.  Accordingly, 
nine  months  after  I  had  opened  my  place  these  gen 
tlemen  used  their  influence  quietly  with  the  Legis 
lature  and  "jobbed"  me.  The  license  was  raised  for 

*Since  this  was  written  the  State  has  abolished  the  sale 
of  liquor  from  within  its  boundaries. 


VENTURES  AND  ADVENTURES  85 

dance  halls  at  one  bound  to  $25  per  night.  This  was 
a  heavier  tax  than  even  my  business  would  stand,  so 
I  set  about  at  once  looking  for  somebody  on  whom 
to  unload  the  property.  I  claim  originality,  if  not  a 
particular  observance  of  ethics,  in  doing  this. 

One  day  a  man  came  along  and,  when  he  saw  the 
crowd  in  the  hall,  suggested  that  I  sell  him  a  share 
in  the  enterprise. 

"No,"  I  replied,  'Til  not  sell  you  a  share;  but,  to 
tell  you  the  truth,  I'm  getting  tired  of  this  business, 
and  want  to  get  out  of  it  for  good.  I'll  sell  you  the 
whole  shooting-match,  if  you  want  to  buy.  Suppose 
you  stay  tonight  with  my  barkeep  and  see  what  kind 
of  business  I  do." 

He  agreed  and  I  put  two  hundred  dollars  in  my 
pocket  and  started  around  town.  I  spent  that  two 
hundred  dollars  to  such  good  purpose  that  that  night 
the  hall  was  crowded  to  the  doors.  The  prospective 
purchaser  looked  on  with  blinking  eyes  at  the 
thought  of  the  profits  that  must  accrue  to  the  owner. 
Would  he  buy  the  place  ?  Would  he  ?  Well,  say — 
he  was  so  anxious  to  buy  it  that  he  wanted  to  pass 
over  the  cash  when  he  saw  me  counting  up  my 
takings  in  the  small  hours  of  the  morning.  The 
takings  were,  I  remember,  $417.  But  I  told  him 
not  to  be  in  a  hurry,  to  go  home  and  sleep  over  the 
proposition  and  come  back  the  next  day. 

After  he  had  gone  the  collector  came  around,  took 
his  $26.50  and  departed.  On  his  heels  came  my 
man. 


86  ARIZONA'S  YESTERDAY 

"Do  you  still  want  to  buy?"  I  asked  him. 

"You  bet  your  sweet  life  I  want  to  buy,"  he 
replied. 

"You're  sure  you've  investigated  the  proposition 
fully?"  I  asked  him. 

The  customer  thought  of  that  four  hundred  and 
seventeen  dollars  taken  in  over  the  bar  the  night 
before  and  said  he  had. 

"Hand  over  the  money,  then,"  I  said,  promptly. 
"The  place  is  yours." 

The  next  morning  he  came  to  me  with  a  lugu 
brious  countenance. 

"Well,"  I  greeted  him,  "how  much  did  you  make 
last  night?" 

"Took  in  ninety-six  dollars,"  he  answered,  sadly. 
"Cady,  why  didn't  you  tell  me  about  that  $25  tax?" 

"Tell  you  about  it?"  I  repeated,  as  if  astonished. 
"Why,  didn't  I  ask  you  if  you  had  investigated  the 
thing  fully  ?  Did  I  ask  you  to  go  into  the  deal  blind 
fold?  It  wiasn't  my  business  to  tell  you  about  any 
tax." 

And  with  that  he  had  to  be  content. 


I  was  now  out  of  the  dance-hall  business  for  good, 
and  I  looked  about  for  some  other  and  more  prosaic 
occupation  to  indulge  in.  Thanks  to  the  deal  I  had 
put  through  with  the  confiding  stranger  .with  the 
ready  cash,  I  was  pretty  well  "heeled"  so  far  as 
money  went,  and  all  my  debts  were  paid.  Finally  I 


VENTURES  AND  ADVENTURES  87 

decided  that  I  would  go    into    business    again  and 
bought  a  grocery  store  on  Mesilla  street. 

The  handing  out  of  canned  tomatoes  and  salt  soda 
crackers,  however,  speedily  got  on  my  nerves.  I 
was  still  a  comparatively  young  man  and  my  restless 
spirit  longed  for  expression  in  some  new  environ 
ment.  About  this  time  Paola,  my  contract-wife, 
who  was  everything  that  a  wife  should  be  in  my 
opinion,  became  a  little  homesick  and  spoke  often  of 
the  home  she  had  left  at  Sauxal,  a  small  gulf-coast 
port  in  Lower  California.  Accordingly,  one  morn 
ing,  I  took  it  into  my  head  to  take  her  home  on  a 
visit  to  see  her  people,  and,  the  thought  being  always 
father  to  the  action  with  me,  I  traded  my  grocery 
store  for  a  buckboard  and  team  and  some  money, 
and  set  forth  in  this  conveyance  for  Yuma.  This 
was  a  trip  not  considered  so  very  dangerous,  except 
for  the  lack  of  water,  for  the  Indians  along  the  route 
were  mostly  peaceable  and  partly  civilized.  Only 
for  a  short  distance  out  of  Tucson  did  the  Apache 
hold  suzerainty,  and  this  only  when  sufficient  Papa- 
gos,  whose  territory  it  really  was,  could  not  be  mus 
tered  together  in  force  to  drive  them  off.  The 
Papago  Indians  hated  the  Apaches  quite  as  much  as 
the  white  man  did,  for  the  Papago  lacked  the 
stamina  and  fighting  qualities  of  the  Apache  and  in 
other  characteristics  was  an  entirely  different  type 
of  Indian.  I  have  reason  to  believe  that  the  Apaches 
were  not  originally  natives  of  Arizona,  but  were  an 
offshoot  of  one  of  the  more  ferocious  tribes  further 


88  ARIZONA'S  YESTERDAY 

north.  This  I  think  because,  for  one  thing,  the 
facial  characteristics  of  the  other  Arizona  Indians — 
the  Pimas,  Papagos,  Yumas,  Maricopas,  and  others 
— are  very  similar  to  each  other  but  totally  different 
from  those  of  the  various  Apache  tribes,  as  was  the 
language  they  spoke.  The  Papagos,  Pirnas,  Yumas, 
Maricopas  and  other  peaceable  Indian  peoples  were 
of  a  settled  nature  and  had  lived  in  their  respective 
territories  for  ages  before  the  white  man  came  to 
the  West.  -The  Apache,  on  the  other  hand,  was  a 
nomad,  with  no  definite  country  to  call  his  own  and 
recognizing  no  boundary  lines  of  other  tribes.  It 
was  owing  to  Apache  depredations  on  the  Papagos 
and  Pimas  that  the  latter  were  so  willingly  enlisted 
on  the  side  of  the  White  man  in  the  latter's  fight 
for  civilization. 

Reaching  Yuma  without  any  event  to  record  that  I 
remember,  we  took  one  of  the  Colorado  River  boats 
to  the  mouth  of  the  Colorado,  where  transfers  were 
made  to  the  deep-sea  ships  plying  between  the  Colo 
rado  Gulf  and  San  Francisco.  One  of  these  steam 
ers,  which  wtere  creditable  to  the  times,  we  took  to 
La  Paz.  At  La  Paz  Paola  was  fortunate  enough  to 
meet  her  padrina,  or  godfather,  who  furnished  us 
with  mules  and  horses  with  which  we  reached 
Sauxal,  Paola's  home.  There  we  stayed  with  her 
family  for  some  time. 

While  staying  at  Sauxal  I  went  to  a  fiesta  in  the 
Arroyo  San  Luis  and  there  began  playing  cooncan 
with  an  old  rancher  who  was  accounted  one  of  the 


VENTURES  AND  ADVENTURES  89 

most  wealthy  inhabitants  of  the  country.  I  won 
from  him  two  thousand  oranges,  five  gallons  of 
wine,  seventeen  buckskins  and  two  hundred  heifers. 
The  heifers  I  presented  to  Paola  and  the  buckskins 
I  gave  to  her  brothers  to  make  leggings  out  of.  The 
wine  and  oranges  I  took  to  La  Paz  and  sold,  netting 
a  neat  little  sum  thereby. 

Sixty  miles  from  La  Paz  was  El  Triunfo,  one  of 
the  best  producing  silver  mines  in  Lower  California, 
managed  by  a  man  named  Blake.  Obeying  an  im 
pulse  I  one  day  went  out  to  the  mine  and  secured  a 
job,  working  at  it  for  some  time,  and  among  other 
things  starting  a  small  store  which  was  patronized 
by  the  company's  workmen.  Growing  tired  of  this 
occupation,  I  returned  to  Sauxal,  fetched  Paola  and 
with  her  returned  to  Yuma,  or  Arizona  City,  where 
I  started  a  small  chicken  ranch  a  few  miles  up  the 
river.  Coyotes  and  wolves  killed  my  poultry,  how 
ever,  and  sores  occasioned  by  ranch  work  broke  out 
on  my  hands,  so  I  sold  the  chicken  ranch  and  moved 
to  Arizona  City,  opening  a  restaurant  on  the  main 
street.  In  this  cafe  I  made  a  specialty  of  pickled 
feet — not  pig's  feet,  but  bull's  feet,  for  which  deli 
cacy  I  claim  the  original  creation.  It  was  some 
dish,  too!  They  sold  like  hot-cakes. 

While  I  was  in  Lbwer  California  I  witnessed  a 
sight  that  is  well  worth  speaking  of.  It  was  a  Mex 
ican  funeral,  and  the  queerest  one  I  ever  saw  or 
expect  to  see,  though  I  have  read  of  Chinese  funer 
als  that  perhaps  approach  it  in  peculiarity.  It  was 


90  ARIZONA'S  YESTERDAY 

while  on  my  way  back  to  Sauxal  from  La  Paz  that 
I  met  the  cortege.  The  corpse  was  that  of  a  wealthy 
rancher's  wife,  and  the  coffin  was  strung  on  two  long 
poles  borne  by  four  men.  Accompanying  the  coffin 
alongside  of  those  carrying  it  were  about  two  hun 
dred  horsemen.  The  bearers  kept  up  a  jog-trot, 
never  once  faltering  on  the  way,  each  horseman 
taking  his  turn  on  the  poles.  When  it  became  a 
man's  turn  to  act  as  bearer  nobody  told  him,  but  he 
slipped  off  his  horse,  letting  it  run  wherever  it 
pleased,  ran  to  the  coffin,  ducked  under  the  pole  and 
started  with  the  others  on  the  jog-trot,  wMe  the 
man  whose  place  he  had  taken  caught  his  horse. 
Never  once  in  a  carry  of  150  miles  did  that  coffin 
stop,  and  never  once  did  that  jog-trot  falter.  The 
cortege  followers  ate  at  the  various  ranches  they 
passed,  nobody  thinking  of  refusing  them  food.  The 
150  mile  journey  to  San  Luis  was  necessary  in  order 
to  reach  a  priest  who  would  bury  the  dead  woman. 
All  the  dead  were  treated  in  the  same  manner. 

While  I  was  in  Yuma  the  railroad  reached  Dos 
Palmas,  Southern  California,  and  one  day  I  went 
there  with  a  wagon  and  bought  a  load  of  apples, 
which,  wfith  one  man  to  accompany  me,  I  hauled  all 
the  way  to  Tucson.  That  wagon-load  of  apples  was 
the  first  fruit  to  arrive  in  the  Territory  and  it  was 
hailed  with  acclaim.  I  sold  the  lot  for  one  thousand 
dollars,  making  a  profit  well  over  fifty  per  cent. 
Then  with  the  wagon  I  returned  to  Yuma. 

On  the  way,  as  I  was  Hearing  Yuma,  I  stopped  at 


VENTURES  AND  ADVENTURES  91 

Canyon  Station,  which  a  man  named  Ed.  Lumley 
kept.  Just  as  we  drove  up  an  old  priest  came  out 
of  Lumley's  house  crying  something  aloud.  We 
hastened  up  and  he  motioned  inside.  Within  we 
saw  poor  Lumley  dead,  with  both  his  hands  slashed 
off  and  his  body  bearing  other  marks  of  mutilation. 
It  turned  out  that  two  Mexicans  to  whom  Lumley 
had  given  shelter  had  killed  him  because  he  refused 
to  tell  them  where  he  kept  his  money.  The  Mex 
icans  were  afterwards  caught  in  California,  taken 
to  Maricopa  county  and  there,  after  trial  by  the  usual 
method,  received  the  just  penalty  for  their  crime. 
From  Yuma  I  moved  to  Florence,  Arizona,  where 
I  built  a  dance-hall  and  saloon,  which  I  sold  almost 
immediately  to  an  Italian  named  Gendani.  Then  I 
moved  back  to  Tucson,  my  old  stamping-ground. 


INDIAN  WARFARE 

When  strong  men  fought  and  loved  and  lost, 
And  might  was  right  throughout  the  land; 

When  life  zvas  wine  and  wine  was  life, 

And  God  looked  down  on  endless  strife; 

Where  murder,  lust  and  hate  were  rife, 
What  footprints  Time  left  in  the  sand! 

— WOON. 

IN  THE  seventies  and  early  eighties  the  hostility 
of  the  various  Apache  Indian  tribes  was  at  its 
height,  and  there  was  scarcely  a  man  in  the 
Territory  who  had  not  at  some  time  felt  the  dread 
of  these  implacable  enemies. 

By  frequent  raids  on  emigrants'  wagons  and  on 
freighting  outfits,  the  Indians  had  succeeded  in  arm 
ing  themselves  fairly  successfully  with  the  rifle  of 
the  white  man;  and  they  kept  themselves  in  ammu 
nition  by  raids  on  lonely  ranches  and  by  ''jumping" 
or  ambushing  prospectors  and  lone  travelers.  If  a 
man  was  outnumbered  by  Apaches  he  often  shot 
himself,  for  he  knew  that  if  captured  he  wtould  prob 
ably  be  tortured  by  one  of  the  fiendish  methods  made 
use  of  by  these  Indians.  If  he  had  a  woman  with 
him  it  was  an  act  of  kindness  to  shoot  her,  too,  for 
to  her,  also,  even  if  the  element  of  torture  were 
absent,  captivity  with  the  Indians  would  invariably 
be  an  even  sadder  fate. 


INDIAN  WARFARE  93 

Sometimes  bands  of  whites  would  take  the  place 
of  the  soldiers  and  revenge  themselves  on  Apache 
raiders.  There  was  the  raid  on  the  Wooster  ranch, 
for  instance.  This  ranch  was  near  Tubac.  Wooster 
lived  alone  on  the  ranch  with  his  wife  and  one  hired 
man.  One  morning  Apaches  swooped  down  on  the 
place,  killed  Wooster  and  carried  off  his  wife.  As 
she  has  never  been  heard  of  since  it  has  always  been 
supposed  that  she  was  killed.  This  outrage  resulted 
in  the  famous  "Camp  Grant  Massacre,"  the  tale  of 
which  echoed  all  over  the  world,  together  with  indig 
nant  protests  from  centers  of  culture  in  the  East 
that  the  whites  of  Arizona  were  "more  savage"  than 
the  savages  themselves.  I  leave  it  to  the  reader  to 
judge  whether  this  was  a  fact. 

The  Wooster  raid  and  slaughter  was  merely  the 
culminating  tragedy  of  a  series  of  murders,  robberies 
and  depredations  carried  on  by  the  Apaches  for 
years.  Soldiers  would  follow  the  raiders,  kill  a  few 
of  them  in  retaliation,  and  a  few  days  later  another 
outrage  would  be  perpetrated.  The  Apaches  were 
absolutely  fearless  in  the  warfare  they  carried  on 
for  possession  of  what  they,  rightly  or  wrongly, 
considered  their  invaded  territory.  The  Apache 
with  the  greatest  number  of  murders  to  his  name 
was  most  highly  thought  of  by  his  tribe. 

When  the  Wooster  raid  occurred  I  was  in  Tucson. 
Everybody  in  Tucson  knew  Wooster  and  liked  him. 
There  was  general  mourning  and  a  cry  for  instant 
revenge  when  his  murder  was  heard  of.  For  a  long 


94  ARIZONA'S  YESTERDAY 

time  it  had  been  believed  that  the  Indians  wintering 
on  the  government  reservation  at  Camp  Grant,  at 
the  expense  of  Uncle  Sam,  were  the  authors  of  the 
numerous  raids  in  the  vicinity  of  Tucson,  though 
until  that  time  it  had  been  hard  to  convince  the 
authorities  that  such  was  the  case.  This  time,  how 
ever,  it  became  obvious  that  something  had  to  be 
done. 

The  white  men  of  Tucson  held  a  meeting,  at 
which  I  was  present.  Sidney  R.  De  Long,  first 
Mayor  of  Tucson,  was  also  there.  After  the  meet 
ing  had  been  called  to  order  Dfe  Long  rose  and  said : 

"Boys,  this  thing  has  got  to  be  stopped.  The 
military  won't  believe  us  when  we  tell  them  that 
their  chanty  to  the  Indians  is  our  undoing — that  the 
government's  wards  are  a  pack  of  murderers  and 
cattle  thieves.  What  shall  we  do  ?" 

"Let  the  military  go  hang,  and  the  government, 
too !"  growled  one  man,  "Old  Bill"  Oury,  a  consid 
erable  figure  in  the  life  of  early  Tucson,  and  an  ex- 
Confederate  soldier. 

The  meeting  applauded. 

"We  can  do  what  the  soldiers  won't,"  I  said. 

"Right!"  said  Oury,  savagely.  "Let's  give  these 
devils  a  taste  of  their  own  medicine.  Maybe  after  a 
few  dozen  of  'em  are  killed  they'll  learn  some  respect 
for  the  white  man." 

Nobody  vetoed  the  suggestion. 

The  following  day  six  white  men — myself,  De 
Long  and  fierce  old  Bill  Oury  among  them,  rode  out 


INDIAN  WARFARE  95 

of  Tucson  bound  for  Tubac.  With  us  we  had  three 
Papago  Indian  trailers.  Arrived  at  the  Wooster 
ranch  the  Papagos  were  set  to  work  and  followed  a 
trail  that  led  plain  as  daylight  to  the  Indian  camp  at 
Fort  Grant.  A  cry  escaped  all  of  us  at  this  justifica 
tion  of  our  suspicions. 

"That  settles  it!"  ground  out  Oury,  between  his 
set  teeth.  "It's  them  Injuns  or  us.  And — it  won't 
be  us." 

We  returned  to  Tucson,  rounded  up  a  party  con 
sisting  of  about  fifty  Papagos,  forty-five  Mexicans 
and  ourselves,  and  set  out  for  Camp  Grant.  We 
reached  the  fort  at  break  of  day,  or  just  before,  and 
before  the  startled  Apaches  could  fully  awaken  to 
what  was  happening,  or  the  near-by  soldiers  gather 
their  wits  together,  eighty-seven  Aravaipa  Apaches 
had  been  slain  as  they  lay.  The  Papagos  accounted 
for  most  of  the  dead,  but  we  six  white  men  and  our 
Mexican  friends  did  our  part.  It  was  bloody  work; 
but  it  was  justice,  and  on  the  frontier  then  the  whites 
made  their  own  justice. 

All  of  us  were  arrested,  as  a  matter  of  course,  and 
when  word  reached  General  Sherman  at  Washing 
ton  from  the  commander  of  the  military  forces  at 
Fort  Grant,  an  order  was  issued  that  all  of  us  were 
to  be  tried  for  murder.  We  suffered  no  qualms,  for 
we  knew  that  according  to  frontier  standards  what 
we  had  done  was  right,  and  would  inevitably  have 
been  done  some  time  or  another  by  somebody.  We 
were  tried  in  Judge  Titus'  Territorial  Court,  but,  to 


96  ARIZONA'S  YESTERDAY 

the  dismay  of  the  military  and  General  Sherman, 
who  of  course  knew  nothing  of  the  events  that  had 
preceded  the  massacre,  not  a  man  in  the  jury  could 
be  found  who  would  hang-  us.  The  Territory  was 
searched  for  citizens  impartial  enough  to  adjudge 
the  slaying  of  a  hostile  Apache  as  murder,  but  none 
could  be  found.  The  trial  turned  out  a  farce  and 
we  were  all  acquitted,  to  receive  the  greatest  demon 
stration  outside  the  courtroom  that  men  on  trial 
for  their  lives  ever  received  in  Arizona,  I  think. 
One  thing  that  made  our  acquittal  more  than  certain 
was  the  fact,  brought  out  at  the  trial,  that  the  dress 
of  Mrs.  Wooster  and  a  pair  of  moccasins  belonging 
to  her  husband  were  found  on  the  bodies  of  Indians 
whom  we  killed.  Lieutenant  Whitman,  who  was  in 
command  at  Fort  Grant,  and  on  whom  the  responsi 
bility  for  the  conduct  of  the  Indians  wintering  there 
chiefly  rested,  was  soon  after  relieved  from  duty 
and  transferred  to  another  post.  General  George 
Crook  arrived  to  take  his  place  late  in  1871.  The 
massacre  had  occurred  on  the  last  day  of  April  of 
that  year. 

Other  raids  occurred.  Al  Peck,  an  old  and  valued 
friend  of  mine,  had  several  experiences  with  the 
Apaches,  which  culminated  in  the  Peck  raid  of  April 
27,  1886,  when  Apaches  jumped  his  ranch,  killed  his 
wife  and  a  man  named  Charles  Owens  and  carried 
off  Peck's  niece.  Apparently  satisfied  with  this, 
they  turned  Peck  loose,  after  burning  the  ranch 
house.  The  unfortunate  man's  step-niece  was  found 


INDIAN  WARFARE  97 

some  six  weeks  later  by  Mexican  cowpunchers  in 
the  Cocoapi  Mountains  in  Old  Mexico. 

The  famous  massacre  of  the  Samaniego  freight 
teams  and  the  destruction  of  his  outfit  at  Cedar 
Springs,  between  Fort  Thomas  and  Wilcox,  was 
witnessed  by  Charles  Beck,  another  friend  of  mine. 
Beck  had  come  in  with  a  quantity  of  fruit  and  was 
unloading  it  when  he  heard  a  fusilade  of  shots 
around  a  bend  in  the  road.  A  moment  later  a  boy 
came  by  helter-skelter  on  a  horse. 

"Apaches!"  gasped  the  boy,  and  rode  on. 

Beck  waited  to  hear  no  more.  He  knew  that  to 
attack  one  of  Samaniego's  outfits  there  must  be  at 
least  a  hundred  Indians  in  the  neighborhood.  Un 
hitching  his  horse,  he  jumped  on  its  back  and  rode 
for  dear  life  in  the  direction  of  Eureka  Springs. 
Indians  sighted  him  as  he  swept  into  the  open  and 
followed,  firing  as  they  rode.  By  luck,  however, 
and  the  fact  that  his  horse  was  fresher  than  those  of 
his  pursuers,  Beck  got  safely  away. 

Thirteen  men  were  killed  at  this  Cedar  Springs 
massacre  and  thousands  of  dollars'  worth  of  freight 
was  carried  off  or  destroyed.  The  raid  was  unex 
pected  owing  to  the  fact  that  the  Samaniego  brothers 
had  contracts  with  the  government  and  the  stuff  in 
their  outfit  was  intended  for  the  very  Indians  con 
cerned  in  the  ambuscade.  One  of  the  Samaniegos 
was  slain  at  this  massacre. 

Then  there  was  the  Tumacacori  raid,  at  Barnett's 
ranch  in  the  Tumacacori  Mountains,  when  Charlie 


98  ARIZONA'S  YESTERDAY 

Murray  and  Tom  Shaw  were  killed.  Old  Man 
Frenchy,  as  he  was  called,  suffered  the  severe  loss 
of  his  freight  and  teams  when  the  Indians  burned 
them  up  across  the  Cienega.  Many  other  raids 
occurred,  particulars  of  which  are  not  to  hand,  but 
those  I  have  related  will  serve  as  samples  of  the 
work  of  the  Indians  and  will  show  just  how  it  \vras 
the  Apaches  gained  the  name  they  did  of  being  veri 
table  fiends  in  human  form. 


After  the  expiration  of  my  contract  with  Paola 
Ortega  I  remained  in  a  state  of  single  blessedness 
for  some  time,  and  then  married  Gregoria  Sosa,  in 
the  summer  of  1879.  Gregoria  rewarded  me  with 
one  child,  a  boy,  who  is  now  living  in  Nogales.  On 
December  23,  1889,  Gregoria  died  and  in  October, 
1890,  I  married  my  present  wife,  whose  maiden 
name  was  Donna  Paz  Paderes,  and  who  belongs  to 
an  old  line  of  Spanish  aristocracy  in  Mexico.  We 
are  now  living  together  in  the  peace  and  contentment 
of  old  age,  w'ell  occupied  in  bringing  up  and  pro 
viding  for  our  family  of  two  children,  Mary,  who 
will  be  twenty  years  old  on  February  25,  1915,  and 
Charlie,  who  will  be  sixteen  on  the  same  date.  Both 
our  children,  by  the  grace  of  God,  have  been  spared 
us  after  severe  illnesses. 

*     *     *     * 

To  make  hundreds  of  implacable  enemies  at  one 
stroke  is  something  any  man  would  very  naturally 


INDIAN  WARFARE  99 

hesitate  to  do,  but  I  did  just  that  about  a  year  after 
I  commenced  working  for  D.  A.  Sanford,  one  of  the 
biggest  ranchers  between  the  railroad  and  the  bor 
der.  The  explanation  of  this  lies  in  one  word — 
sheep. 

If  there  was  one  man  whom  cattlemen  hated  with 
a  fierce,  unreasoning  hatred,  it  was  the  man  who  ran 
sheep  over  the  open  range — a  proceeding  perfectly 
legal,  but  one  which  threatened  the  grazing  of  the 
cattle  inasmuch  as  where  sheep  had  grazed  it  was 
impossible  for  cattle  to  feed  for  some  weeks,  or  until 
the  grass  had  had  time  to  grow  again.  Sheep  crop 
almost  to  the  ground  and  feed  in  great  herds,  close 
together,  and  the  range  after  a  herd  of  sheep  has 
passed  over  it  looks  as  if  somebody  had  gone  over 
it  with  a  lawnmower. 

In  1881  I  closed  out  the  old  Sanford  ranch  stock 
and  was  informed  by  my  employer  that  he  had  fore 
closed  a  mortgage  on  13,000  head  of  sheep  owned 
by  Tully,  Ochoa  and  De  Long  of  Tucson.  This  firm 
was  the  biggest  at  that  time  in  the  Territory  and  the 
De  Long  of  the  company  was  one  of  the  six  men 
who  led  the  Papagos  in  the  Camp  Grant  Massacre. 
He  died  in  Tucson  recently  and  I  am  now  the  only 
white  survivor  of  that  occurrence.  Tully,  Ochoa 
and  De  Long  were  forced  out  of  business  by  the 
coming  of  the  railroad  in  1880,  which  cheapened 
things  so  much  that  the  large  stock  held  by  the  com 
pany  was  sold  at  prices  below  wihat  it  had  cost, 
necessitating  bankruptcy. 


100  ARIZONA'S  YESTERDAY 

I  was  not  surprised  to  hear  that  Sanford  intended 
to  run  sheep,  though  I  will  admit  that  the  informa 
tion  was  scarcely  welcome.  Sheep,  however,  at  that 
time  were  much  scarcer  than  cattle  and  fetched,  con 
sequently,  much  higher  prices.  My  employer,  D.  A. 
Sanford,  who  now  lives  in  Washington,  D.  C,  was 
one  of  the  shrewdest  business  men  in  the  Territory, 
and  was,  as  well,  one  of  the  best-natured  of  men. 
His  business  acumen  is  testified  to  by  the  fact  that 
he  is  now  sufficiently  wealthy  to  count  his  pile  in  the 
seven  figures. 

Mr.  Sanford's  wishes  being  my  own  in  the  mat 
ter,  of  course,  I  did  as  I  was  told,  closed  out  the 
cattle  stock  and  set  the  sheep  grazing  on  the  range. 
The  cattlemen  were  angry  and  sent  me  an  ultimatum 
to  the  effect  that  if  the  sheep  were  not  at  once  taken 
off  the  grass  there  would  be  "trouble."  I  told  them 
that  Sanford  was  my  boss,  not  them;  that  I  would 
take  his  orders  and  nobody  else's,  and  that  until  he 
told  me  to  take  the  sheep  off  the  range  they'd  stay 
precisely  where  they  were. 

My  reply  angered  the  cattlemen  more  and  before 
long  I  became  subject  to  many  annoyances.  Sheep 
were  found  dead,  stock  was  driven  off,  my  ranch 
hands  were  shot  at,  and  several  times  I  myself  nar 
rowly  escaped  death  at  the  hands  of  the  enraged 
cattlemen.  I  determined  not  to  give  in  until  I 
received  orders  to  that  effect  from  Mr.  Sanford,  but 
I  will  admit  that  it  was  with  a  feeling  of  distinct 
relief  that  I  hailed  those  orders  when  they  came 


INDIAN  WARFARE  101 

three  years  later.  For  one  thing,  before  the  sheep 
business  came  up,  most  of  the  cattlemen  who  were 
now  my  enemies  had  been  my  close  friends,  and  it 
hurt  me  to  lose  their  esteem.  I  am  glad  to  say,  how 
ever,  that  most  of  these  cattlemen  and  cowboys,  who, 
when  I  ran  sheep,  would  cheerfully  have  been  re 
sponsible  for  my  funeral,  are  my  very  good  friends 
at  the  present  time;  and  I  trust  they  will  always 
remain  so.  Most  of  them  are  good  fellows  and  I 
have  always  admitted  that  their  side  had  the  best 
argument. 

In  spite  of  the  opposition  of  the  cattlemen  I  made 
the  sheep  business  a  paying  one  for  Mr.  Sanford, 
clearing  about  $17,000  at  the  end  of  three  years. 
When  that  period  had  elapsed  I  had  brought  shear 
ers  to  Sanford  Station  to  shear  the  sheep,  but  was 
stopped  in  my  intention  with  the  news  that  Sanford 
had  sold  the  lot  to  Pusch  and  Zellweger  of  Tucson. 
I  paid  off  the  men  I  had  hired,  satisfied  them,  and 
thus  closed  my  last  deal  in  the  sheep  business.  One 
of  the  men,  Jesus  Mabot,  I  hired  to  go  to  the  Rodeo 
with  me,  while  the  Chinese  gardener  hired  another 
named  Fernando. 

Then  occurred  that  curious  succession  of  fatalities 
among  the  Chinamen  in  the  neighborhood  that 
puzzled  us  all  for  years  and  ended  by  its  being  im 
possible  to  obtain  a  Chinaman  to  fill  the  last  man's 
place. 


DEPUTY   SHERIFF,   CATTLEMAN   AND 
FARMER 

You    kin    have    yore    Turner    sunsets, — he    never 

painted  one 
Like  tti  Santa  Rita  Mountains  at  tti  settin'  o'  th' 

sun! 
You  kin  have  yore  Eastern  cornfields,  ivith  th'  crops 

that  never  change, 

Me — I've  all  Arizona,  and,  best  o'  all,  the  Range! 

— WOON. 

ABOUT  this  time  Sheriff  Bob  Paul  reigned  in 
Tucson  and  made  me  one  of  his  deputies. 
I  had  numerous  adventures  in  that  capacity, 
but  remember  only  one  as  being  worth  recording 
here. 

One  of  the  toughest  characters  in  the  West  at 
that  time,  a  man  feared  throughout  the  Territory, 
was  Pat  Cannon.  He  had  a  score  of  killings  to  his 
credit,  and,  finally,  when  Paul  became  sheriff  a  war 
rant  was  issued  for  his  arrest  on  a  charge  of  mur 
der.  After  he  had  the  warrant  Paul  came  to  me. 

"Cady,"  he  said,  "y°u  know  Pat  Cannon,  don't 
you?" 

"I  worked  with  him  once,"  I  answered. 

"Well,"  returned  Paul,  "here's  a  warrant  for  his 
arrest  on  a  murder  charge.  Go  get  him." 

I  obtained  a  carryall  and  an  Italian  boy  as  driver, 


SHERIFF,  CATTLEMAN  AND  FARMER        103 

in  Tucson,  and  started  for  Camp  Grant.  Arrived 
there  I  was  informed  that  it  was  believed  Cannon 
was  at  Smithy's  wood  camp,  several  miles  away. 
We  went  on  to  Smithy's  wood  camp.  Sure  enough, 
Pat  was  there — very  much  so.  He  was  the  first  man 
I  spotted  as  I  drove  into  the  camp.  Cannon  was 
sitting  at  the  door  of  his  shack,  two  revolvers  belted 
on  him  and  his  rifle  standing  up  by  the  door  at  his 
side,  within  easy  reach.  I  knew  that  Pat  didn't 
know  that  I  was  a  deputy,  so  I  drove  right  up. 

"Hello,"  I  called.  "How's  the  chance  for  a  game 
of  poker?" 

"Pretty  good,"  he  returned,  amiably.  "Smithy'll 
be  in  in  a  few  moments,  John.  Stick  around — we 
have  a  game  every  night." 

"Sure,"  I  responded,  and  descended.  As  I  did 
so  I  drew  my  six-shooter  and  whirled  around,  aim 
ing  the  weapon  at  him  point  blank. 

"Hands  up,  Pat,  you  son-of-a-gun,"  I  said,  and  I 
guess  I  grinned.  "You're  my  prisoner." 

I  had  told  the  Italian  boy  what  to  do,  beforehand, 
and  he  now  gave  me  the  steel  bracelets,  which  I 
snapped  on  Cannon,  whose  face  bore  an  expression 
seemingly  a  mixture  of  intense  astonishment  and 
disgust.  Finally,  when  I  had  him:  safely  in  the 
carryall,  he  spat  out  a  huge  chew  of  tobacco  and 
swore. 

He  said  nothing  to  me  for  awhile,  and  then  he 
remarked,  in  an  injured  way: 


104  ARIZONA'S  YESTERDAY 

"Wa-al,  Johnny,  I  sure  would  never  have  thought 
it  of  you!" 

He  said  nothing  more,  except  to  ask  me  to  twist 
him  a  cigarette  or  two,  and  when  we  reached  Tucson 
I  turned  him  over  safely  to  Sheriff  Paul. 


You  who  read  this  in  your  stuffy  city  room,  or 
crowided  subway  seat,  imagine,  if  you  can,  the  fol 
lowing  scene : 

Above,  the  perfect,  all-embracing  blue  of  the  Ari 
zona  sky;  set  flaming  in  the  middle  of  it  the  sun,  a 
glorious  blazing  orb  whose  beauty  one  may  dare  to 
gaze  upon  only  through  smoked  glasses;  beneath, 
the  Range,  which,  far  from  being  a  desert,  is  cov 
ered  with  a  growth  of  grass  which  grows  thicker 
and  greener  as  the  rivers'  banks  are  reached. 

All  around,  Arizona — the  painted  hills,  looking* 
as  though  someone  had  carefully  swept  them  early 
in  the  morning  with  a  broom;  the  valleys  studded 
with  mesquite  trees  and  greasewood  and  dotted  here 
and  there  with  brown  specks  which  even  the  un 
initiated  will  know  are  cattle,  and  the  river,  one  of 
Arizona's  minor  streams,  a  few  yards  across  and  only 
a  couple  of  feet  deep,  but  swift-rushing,  pebble- 
strew'd  and  clear  as  crystal. 

Last,  but  not  least,  a  heterogeneous  mob  of  cow 
boys  and  vaqueros,  with  their  horses  champing  at 
the  bit  and  eager  to  be  off  on  their  work.  In  the 
foreground  a  rough,  unpainted  corral,  where  are 


SHERIFF,  CATTLEMAN  AND  FARMER       105 

more  ponies — wicked-looking,  intelligent  little  beg 
gars,  but  quick  turning  as  though  they  owned  but 
two  legs  instead  of  four,  and  hence  priceless  for  the 
work  of  the  roundup.  In  the  distance,  some  of  them 
quietly  and  impudently  grazing  quite  close  at  hand, 
are  the  cattle,  the  object  of  the  day's  gathering. 

Cowboys  from  perhaps  a  dozen  or  more  ranches 
are  gathered  here,  for  this  is  the  commencement  of 
the  Rodeo — the  roundup  of  cattle  that  takes  place 
semi-annually.  Even  ranches  whose  cattle  are  not 
grazed  on  this  particular  range  have  representatives 
here,  for  often  there  are  strays  with  brands  that 
show  them  to  have  traveled  many  scores  of  miles. 
The  business  of  the  cowboys*  is  to  round  up  and 
corral  the  cattle  and  pick  out  their  own  brands  from 
the  herd.  They  then  see  that  the  unbranded  calves 
belonging  to  cows  of  their  brand  are  properly 
marked  with  the  hot  iron  and  with  the  ear-slit, 
check  up  the  number  of  yearlings  for  the  benefit  of 
their  employers,  and  take  charge  of  such  of  the  cat 
tle  it  is  considered  advisable  to  drive  back  to  the 
home  ranch. 

So  much  sentimental  nonsense  has  been  talked  of 
the  cruelty  of  branding  and  slitting  calves  that  it  is 
worth  while  here,  perhaps,  to  state  positively  that 
the  branding  irons  do  not  penetrate  the  skin  and 
serve  simply  to  burn  the  roots  of  the  hair  so  that 

*The  term  "cowpuncher"  is  not  common  in  Arizona  as 
in  Montana,  but  the  Arizona  cowboys  are  sometimes 
called  "vaqueros." 


106  ARIZONA'S  YESTERDAY 

the  bald  marks  will  show  to  which  ranch  the  calf 
belongs.  There  is  little  pain  to  the  calf  attached  to 
the  operation,  and  one  rarely  if  ever  even  sees  a 
calf  licking  its  brand  after  it  has  been  applied;  and, 
as  is  well  known,  the  cow's  remedy  for  an  injury, 
like  that  of  a  dog,  is  always  to  lick  it.  As  to  the 
ear-slitting,  used  by  most  ranches  as  a  check  on 
their  brands,  it  may  be  said  that  if  the  human  ear 
is  somew'hat  callous  to  pain — as  it  is — the  cow's  ear 
is  even  more  so.  One  may  slice  a  cow's  ear  in  half 
in  a  certain  way  and  she  will  feel  only  slight  pain, 
not  sufficient  to  make  her  give  voice.  The  slitting 
of  a  cow's  ear  draws  very  little  blood. 

While  I  am  on  the  subject, — it  was  amusing  to 
note  the  unbounded  astonishment  of  the  cattlemen 
of  Arizona  a  few  years  ago  when  some  altruistic 
society  of  Boston  came  forward  with  a  brilliant  idea 
that  was  to  abolish  the  cruelty  of  branding  cows 
entirely.  What  was  the  idea  ?  Oh,  they  were  going 
to  hang  a  collar  around  the  cow's  neck,  with  a  brass 
tag  on  it  to  tell  the  name  of  the  owner.  Or,  if  that 
wasn't  feasible,  they  thought  that  a  simple  ring  and 
tag  put  through  the  cow's  ear-lobe  would  prove 
eminently  satisfactory!  The  feelings  of  the  cow 
boys,  when  told  that  they  would  be  required  to  dis 
mount  from  their  horses,  walk  up  to  each  cow  in 
turn  and  politely  examine  her  tag,  perhaps  with  the 
aid  of  spectacles,  may  be  better  imagined  than  de 
scribed.  It  is  sufficient  to  say  that  the  New  England 


SHERIFF,  CATTLEMAN  AND  FARMER        107 

society's  idea  never  got  further  than  Massachusetts, 
if  it  was,  indeed,  used  there,  which  is  doubtful. 

The  brand  is  absolutely  necessary  as  long  as  there 
is  an  open  range,  and  the  abolishment  of  the  open 
range  will  mean  the  abandonment  of  the  cow-ranch. 
At  the  time  I  am  speaking  of  the  whole  of  the  Ter 
ritory  of  Arizona  was  one  vast  open  range,  over 
the  grassy  portions  of  which  cattle  belonging  to 
hundreds  of  different  ranches  roamed  at  will.  Most 
of  the  big  ranches  employed  a  few  cowboys  the  year 
around  to  keep  the  fences  in  repair  and  to  prevent 
cows  from  straying  too  far  from  the  home  range. 
The  home  range  was  generally  anywhere  within  a 
twenty-mile  radius  of  the  ranch  house. 

The  ear-slit  was  first  found  necessary  because  of 
the  activities  of  the  rustlers.  There  were  two  kinds 
of  these  gentry — the  kind  that  owned  ranches  and 
passed  themselves  off  as  honest  ranchers,  and  the 
open  outlaws,  who  drove  off  cattle  by  first  stam 
peding  them  in  the  Indian  manner,  rushed  them 
across  the  international  line  and  then  sold  them  to 
none  too  scrupulous  Mexican  ranchers.  Of  the  two 
it  is  difficult  to  say  which  was  the  most  dangerous 
or  the  most  reviled  by  the  honest  cattlemen.  The 
ranches  within  twenty  or  thirty  miles  of  the  border, 
perhaps,  suffered  more  from  the  stampeders  than 
from  the  small  ranchers,  but  those  on  the  northern 
ranges  had  constantly  to  cope  with  the  activities  of 
dishonest  cattlemen  who  owned  considerably  more 


108  ARIZONA'S  YESTERDAY 

calves  than  they  had  cows,  as  a  rule.  The  difficulty 
was  to  prove  that  these  calves  had  been  stolen. 

It  was  no  difficult  thing  to  steal  cattle  success 
fully,  providing  the  rustler  exercised  ordinary  cau 
tion.  The  method  most  in  favor  among  the  rustlers 
wias  as  follows :  For  some  weeks  the  rustler  would 
ride  the  range,  noting  where  cows  with  unbranded 
calves  were  grazing.  Then,  when  he  had  ascertained 
that  no  cowboys  from  neighboring  ranches  were 
riding  that  way,  he  would  drive  these  cows  and 
their  calves  into  one  of  the  secluded  and  natural 
corrals  with  which  the  range  abounds,  rope  the 
calves,  brand  them  with  his  own  brand,  hobble  and 
sometimes  kill  the  mother  cows  to  prevent  them  fol 
lowing  their  offspring,  and  drive  the  latter  to  his 
home  corral,  where  in  the  course  of  a  few  weeks 
they  would  forget  their  mothers  and  be  successfully 
weaned.  They  would  then  be  turned  out  to  graze 
on  the  Range.  Sometimes  when  the  rustler  did  not 
kill  the  mother  cow  the  calf  proved  not  to  have  been 
successfully  weaned,  and  went  back  to  its  mother — 
the  worst  possible  advertisement  of  the  rustler's 
dirty  work.  Generally,  therefore,  the  mother  cow 
was  killed,  and  little  trace  left  of  the  crime,  for  the 
coyotes  speedily  cleaned  flesh,  brand  and  all  from 
the  bones  of  the  slain  animal.  The  motto  of  most  of 
these  rustlers  was :  "A"  dead  cow  tells  no  tales !" 

Another  method  of  the  rustlers  was  ta  adopt  a 
brand  much  like  that  of  a  big  ranch  near  by,  and 
to  over-brand  the  cattle.  For  instance,  a  big  ranch 


CADY  AND  HIS  THIRD  FAMILY,  1915 


SHERIFF,  CATTLEMAN  AND  FARMER       109 

with  thousands  of  cattle  owns  the  brand  Cross-Bar 
(X — ).  The  rustler  adopts  the  brand  Cross  L 
(XL)  and  by  the  addition  of  a  vertical  mark  to 
the  bar  in  the  first  brand  completely  changes  the 
brand.  It  was  always  a  puzzle  for  the  ranchers 
to  find  brands  that  would  not  be  easily  changed. 
Rustlers  engaged  in  this  work  invariably  took  grave 
chances,  for  a  good  puncher  could  tell  a  changed 
brand  in  an  instant,  and  often  knew  every  cow  be 
longing  to  his  ranch  by  sight,  without  looking  at 
the  brand.  When  one  of  these  expert  cowboys 
found  a  suspicious  brand  he  lost  no  time  hunting 
up  proof,  and  if  he  found  that  there  had  actually 
been  dirty  work,  the  rustler  responsible,  if  wise, 
would  skip  the  country  without  leaving  note  of  his 
destination,  for  in  the  days  of  which  I  speak  the 
penalty  for  cow-stealing  was  almost  always  death, 
except  when  the  sheriff  happened  to  be  on  the  spot. 
Since  the  sheriff  was  invariably  heart  and  soul  a 
cattleman  himself,  he  generally  took  care  that  he 
wasn't  anywhere  in  the  neighborhood  when  a  cattle 
thief  met  his  just  deserts.  Even  now  this  rule  holds 
effect  in  the  cattle  lands.  Only  two  years  ago  a 
prominent  rancher  in  this  country — the  Sonoita 
Range — shot  and  killed  a  Mexican  who  with  a  part 
ner  had  been  caught  red-handed  in  the  act  of  steal 
ing  cattle. 

With  the  gradual  disappearance  of  the  open  range, 
cattle  stealing  has  practically  stopped,  although  one 
still  hears  at  times  of  cases  of  the  kind,  isolated, 


110  ARIZONA'S  YESTERDAY 

but  bearing  traces  of  the  same  old  methods.     Stam 
peding  is,  of  course,  now  done  away  with. 

During  the  years  I  worked  for  D.  A.  Sanford  I 
had  more  or  less  trouble  all  the  time  with  cattle 
thieves,  but  succeeded  fairly  well  in  either  detecting 
the  guilty  ones  or  in  getting  back  the  stolen  cattle. 
I  meted  out  swift  and  sure  justice  to  rustlers,  and 
before  long  it  became  rumored  around  that  it  was 
wise  to  let  cattle  with  the  D.S.  brand  alone.  The 
Sanford  brand  was  changed  three  times.  The  D.S. 
brand  I  sold  to  the  Vail  interests  for  Sanford,  and 
the  Sanford  brand  was  changed  to  the  Dipper, 
which,  afterwards,  following  the  closing  out  of  the 
Sanford  stock,  was  again  altered  to  the  Ninety- 
Seven  (97)  brand.  Cattle  with  the  97  brand  on 
them  still  roam  the  range  about  the  Sonoita. 


It  was  to  a  rodeo  similar  to  the  one  which  I  have 
attempted  to  describe  that  Jesus  Mabot  and  I  de 
parted  following  the  incident  of  the  selling  of  the 
sheep.  We  were  gone  a  week.  When  we  returned 
I  put  up  my  horse  and  was  seeing  that  he  had  some 
feed  when  a  shout  from  Jesus,  whom  I  had  sent  to 
find  the  Chinese  gardener  to  tell  him  we  needed 
something  to  eat,  came  to  my  ears. 

"Oyez,  Senor  Cady!"  Jesus  was  crying,  "El 
Chino  muerte." 

I  hurried  down  to  the  field  where  Mabot  stood 
and  found  him  gazing  at  the  Chinaman,  who  was 


SHERIFF,  CATTLEMAN  AND  FARMER       111 

lying  face  downward  near  the  fence,  quite  dead. 
By  the  smell  and  the  general  lay-out,  I  reckoned  he 
had  been  dead  some  three  days. 

I  told  Mabot  to  stay  with  him  and,  jumping  on 
my  horse,  rode  to  Crittenden,  where  I  obtained  a 
coroner  and  a  jury  that  would  sit  on  the  Chinaman's 
death.  The  next  morning  the  jury  found  that  he 
had  been  killed  by  some  person  or  persons  unknown, 
and  let  it  go  at  that. 

Two  weeks  later  I  had  occasion  to  go  to  Tucson, 
and  on  tying  my  horse  outside  the  Italian  Brothers' 
saloon,  noticed  a  man  I  thought  looked  familiar 
sitting  on  the  bench  outside.  As  I  came  up  he  pulled 
his  hat  over  his  face  so  that  I  could  not  see  it.  I 
went  inside,  ordered  a  drink,  and  looked  in  the  mir 
ror.  It  gave  a  perfect  reflection  of  the  man  outside, 
and  I  saw  that  he  wias  the  Mexican  Fernando,  whom 
the  Chinese  gardener  had  hired  when  I  had  engaged 
Mabot.  I  had  my  suspicions  right  then  as  to  who 
had  killed  the  Chinaman,  but,  having  nothing  by 
which  to  prove  them,  I  was  forced  to  let  the  matter 
drop. 

Two  or  three  years  after  this  I  hired  as  vaquero 
a  Mexican  named  Neclecto,  who  after  a  year  quit 
work  and  went  for  a  visit  to  Nogales.  Neclecto 
bought  his  provisions  from  the  Chinaman  who  kept 
the  store  I  had  built  on  the  ranch,  and  so,  as  we 
were  responsible  for  the  debt,  when  Bob  Bloxton, 
son-in-law  of  Sanford,  came  to  pay  the  Mexican 
off,  he  did  so  in  the  Chinaman's  store. 


112  ARIZONA'S  YESTERDAY 

The  next  morning  Neclecto  accompanied  Bloxton 
to  the  train,  and,  looking  back,  Bob  saw,  the  Mex 
ican  and  another  man  ride  off  in  the  direction  of  the 
ranch.  After  it  happened  Neclecto  owned  up  that 
he  had  been  in  the  Chinaman's  that  night  drinking, 
but  insisted  that  he  had  left  without  any  trouble 
with  the  yellow-skinned  storekeeper.  But  from  that 
day  onward  the  Chinaman  was  never  seen  again. 

Bloxton  persuaded  me  to  return  to  the  ranch 
from  Nogales  and  we  visited  the  Chinaman's  house, 
where  we  found  the  floor  dug  up  as  though  some 
body  had  been  hunting  treasure.  My  wife  found 
a  $10  goldpiece  hidden  in  a  crack  between  the  'dobe 
bricks  and  later  my  son,  John,  unearthed  twelve 
Mexican  dollars  beneath  some  manure  in  the  hen 
coop.  Whether  this  had  belonged  to  the  Chinaman, 
Lbuey,  who  had  disappeared,  or  to  another  China 
man  who  had  been  staying  with  him,  we  could  not 
determine.  At  any  rate,  we  found  no  trace  of  Louey 
or  his  body. 

Even  this  was  not  to  be  the  end  of  the  strange 
series  of  fatalities  to  Chinamen  on  the  Sanford 
ranch.  In  1897  I  quit  the  Sanford  foremanship 
after  working  for  my  employer  seventeen  years,  and 
turned  the  ranch  over  to  Amos  Bloxton,  another 
son-in-law  of  Sanford.  I  rented  agricultural  land 
from  Sanford  and  fell  to  farming.  Near  my  place 
Crazy  John,  a  Chinaman,  had  his  gardens,  where 
he  made  'dobe  bricks  besides  growing  produce. 

We  were  living  then  in  the  old  store  building  and 


SHERIFF,,  CATTLEMAN  -AND  FARMER       113 

the  Chinaman  was  making  bricks  about  a  quarter 
of  a  mile  away  with  a  Mexican  whom  he  employed. 
One  day  we  found  him  dead  and  the  Mexican  gone. 
After  that,  as  was  natural,  we  could  never  persuade 
a  Chinaman  to  live  anywhere  near  the  place.  I  later 
built  a  house  of  the  bricks  the  Chinaman  was 
making  when  he  met  his  death.  The  Mexican 
escaped  to  Sonora,  came  back  when  he  thought  the 
affair  had  blown  over  and  went  to  work  for  the 
railroad  at  Sonoita.  There  he  had  a  fracas  with  the 
section  foreman,  stabbed  him  and  made  off  into  the 
hills.  Sheriff  Wakefield  from  Tucson  came  down 
to  get  the  man  and  shot  him  dead  near  Greaterville, 
which  ended  the  incident. 

In  the  preceding  I  have  mentioned  the  railroad. 
This  was  the  Benson-Hermosillo  road,  built  by  the 
Santa  Fe  and  later  sold  to  the  Southern  Pacific, 
which  extended  the  line  to  San  Bias  in  Coahuila, 
and  which  is  now  in  process  of  extending  it  further 
to  the  city  of  Tepic.  I  was  one  of  those  who  helped 
survey  the  original  line  from  Benson  to  Nogales — 
I  think  the  date  was  1883. 

In  future  times  I  venture  to  state  that  this  road 
will  be  one  of  the  best-paying  properties  of  the 
Southern  Pacific  Company,  which  has  had  the  cour 
age  and  foresight  to  open  up  the  immensely  rich 
empire  of  Western  Mexico.  The  west  coast  of 
Mexico  is  yet  in  the  baby  stage  of  its  development. 
The  revolutions  have  hindered  progress  there  con 
siderably,  but  when  peace  comes  at  last  and  those 


114  ARIZONA'S  YESTERDAY 

now  shouldering  arms  for  this  and  that  faction  in 
the  Republic  return  to  the  peaceful  vocations  they 
owned  before  the  war  began,  there  is  no  doubt  that 
the  world  will  stand  astonished  at  the  riches  of  this, 
at  present,  undeveloped  country.  There  are  por 
tions  of  the  West  Coast  that  have  never  been  sur 
veyed,  that  are  inhabited  to  this  day  with  peaceful 
Indians  who  have  seldom  seen  a  white  face.  The 
country  is  scattered  with  the  ruins  of  wonderful 
temples  and  cathedrals  and,  doubtless,  much  of  the 
old  Aztec  treasure  still  lies  buried  for  some  enter 
prising  fortune-seeker  to  unearth.  There  are  also 
immense  forests  of  cedar  and  mahogany  and  other 
hard  woods  to  be  cut;  and  extensive  areas  of  land 
suitable  for  sugar  planting  and  other  farming  to  be 
brought  under  cultivation.  When  all  this  is  opened 
up  the  West  Coast  cannot  help  taking  its  place  as 
a  wonderfully  rich  and  productive  region. 


IN     AGE     THE     CRICKET     CHIRPS     AND 
BRINGS— 

A  faltering  step  on  life's  highway, 

A  grip  on  the  bottom  rung; 
A  few  good  deeds  done  here  and  there, 

And  my  life's  song  is  sung. 
It's  not  what  you  get  in  pelf  that  counts, 

It's  not  your  time  in  the  race, 
For  most  of  us  draw  the  slower  mounts, 

And  our  deeds  can't  keep  the  pace. 
It's  for  each  what  he's  done  of  kindness, 

And  for  each  what  he's  done  of  cheer, 
That  goes'  on  the  Maker's  scorebook 

With  each  succeeding  year. 

— WOON. 

WHILE  I  was  farming  on  the  Sanford  ranch 
a  brother-in-law  of  D.  A.  Sanford,  Frank 
Lawrence  by  name,  came  to  live  with  me. 
Frank  was  a   splendid   fellow  and   we  were   fast 
friends. 

One  day  during  the  Rodeo  we  were  out  where 
the  vaqueros  were  working  and  on  our  return  found 
our  home,  a  'dobe  house,  burned  down,  and  all  our 
belongings  with  it,  including  considerable  pro 
visions.  My  loss  was  slight,  for  in  those  days  I 
owned  a  prejudice  against  acquiring  any  more 
worldly  goods  than  I  could  with  comfort  pack  on 


116  ARIZONA'S  YESTERDAY 

my  back;  but  Frank  lost  a  trunk  containing  several 
perfectly  good  suits  of  clothes  and  various  other 
more  or  less  valuable  articles  which  he  set  great 
store  by,  besides  over  a  hundred  dollars  in  green 
backs.  We  hunted  among  the  ruins,  of  course,  but 
not  a  vestige  of  anything  savable  did  we  find. 

Three  days  later,  however,  Sanford  himself  ar 
rived  and  took  one  look  at  the  ruins.  Then,  without 
a  word,  he  started  poking  about  with  his  stick. 
From  underneath  where  his  bed  had  been  he  dug  up 
a  little  box  containing  several  hundred  dollars  in 
greenbacks,  and  from  the  earth  beneath  the  charred 
ruins  of  the  chest  of  drawers  he  did  likewise.  Then 
he  stood  up  and  laughed  at  us.  I  will  admit  that 
he  had  a  perfect  right  to  laugh.  He,  the  one  man 
of  the  three  of  us  who  could  best  afford  to  lose  any 
thing,  was  the  only  man  whose  money  had  been 
saved.  Which  only  goes  to  prove  the  proverbial 
luck  of  the  rich  man. 

Not  long  after  this  experience  I  moved  to  Critten- 
den,  where  I  farmed  awhile,  running  buggy  trips  to 
the  mines  in  the  neighborhood  as  a  side  line. 

One  day  a  man  named  Wheeler,  of  Wheeler  & 
Perry,  a  Tucson  merchandise  establishment,  came  to 
Crittenden  and  I  drove  him  out  to  Duquesne.  On 
the  way  Wheeler  caught  sight  of  a  large  fir-pine  tree 
growing  on  the  slope  of  a  hill.  He  pointed  to  it 
and  said: 

"Say,  John,  I'd  give  something  to  have  that  tree 
in  my  house  at  Christmas." 


IN  AGE  THE  CRICKET  CHIRPS  117 

It  was  then  a  week  or  so  to  the  twenty-fifth  of 
December. 

I  glanced  at  the  tree  and  asked  him : 

"You  would,  eh?  Now,  about  how  much  would 
you  give?" 

"Fd  give  five  dollars,"  he  said. 

"Done!"  I  said.  "You  give  me  five  dollars  and 
count  that  tree  yours  for  Christmas!"  And  we 
shook  hands  on  it. 

A  few  days  later  I  rigged  up  a  wagon,  took  along 
three  Mexicans  with  axes,  and  cut  a  load  of  Christ 
mas  trees — I  think  there  were  some  three  hundred  in 
the  load.  Then  I  drove  the  wagon  to  Tucson  and 
after  delivering  Wheeler  his  especial  tree  and  receiv 
ing  the  stipulated  five  dollars  for  it,  commenced 
peddling  the  rest  on  the  streets. 

And,  say!  Those  Christmas  trees  sold  like  wild 
fire.  Everybody  wanted  one.  I  sold  them  for  as 
low  as  six-bits  and  as  high  as  five  dollars,  and  before 
I  left  pretty  nearly  everybody  in  Tucson  owned  one 
of  my  trees. 

When  I  counted  up  I  found  that  my  trip  had 
netted  me,  over  and  above  expenses,  just  one  thou 
sand  dollars. 

This,  you  will  have  to  admit,  was  some  profit 
for  a  load  of  Christmas  trees.  Sad  to  relate,  how 
ever,  a  year  later  when  I  tried  to  repeat  the  per 
formance,  I  found  about  forty  other  fellows  ahead 
of  me  loaded  to  the  guards  with  Christmas  trees  of 
all  kinds  and  sizes.  For  a  time  Christmas  trees  were 


118  ARIZONA'S  YESTERDAY 

cheaper  than  mesquite  brush  as  the  overstocked 
crowd  endeavored  to  unload  on  an  oversupplied 
town.  I  escaped  with  my  outfit  and  my  life  but 
no  profits — that  time. 


On  December  15,  1900,  I  moved  to  Patagonia, 
which  had  just  been  born  on  the  wave  of  the  copper 
boom.  I  rented  a  house,  which  I  ran  successfully 
for  one  year,  and  then  started  the  building  of  the 
first  wing  of  the  Patagonia  Hotel,  which  I  still  own 
and  run?  together  with  a  dance-hall,  skating  rink 
and  restaurant.  Since  that  first  wing  was  built  the 
hotel  has  changed  considerably  in  appearance,  for 
whenever  I  got  far  enough  ahead  to  justify  it,  I 
built  additions.  I  think  I  may  say  that  now  the 
hotel  is  one  of  the  best  structures  of  its  kind  in  the 
county.  I  am  considering  the  advisability  of  more 
additions,  including  a  large  skating  rink  and  dance- 
hall,  but  the  copper  situation  does  not  justify  me  in 
the  outlay  at  present. 

I  am  entirely  satisfied  with  my  location,  however. 
Patagonia  is  not  a  large  place,  but  it  is  full  of  con 
genial  friends  and  will  one  day,  when  the  copper 
industry  again  finds  its  feet,  be  a  large  town.  It  is 
in  the  very  heart  of  the  richest  mining  zone  in  the 
world,  if  the  assayers  are  to  be  believed.  Some  of 
the  mining  properties,  now  nearly  all  temporarily 
closed  down,  are  wjorld-famous — I  quote  for  ex 
ample  the  Three  R.,  the  World's  Fair,  the  Flux,  the 


IN  AGE  THE  CRICKET  CHIRPS  119 

Santa  Cruz,  the  Hardshell,  the  Harshaw,  the  Her- 
mosa,  the  Montezuma,  the  Mansfield  and  the 
Mowry. 

This  last,  nine  miles  from  Patagonia,  was  a  pro 
ducer  long  before  the  Civil  War.  Lead  and  silver 
mined  at  the  Mowry  were  transported  to  Galveston 
to  be  made  into  bullets  for  the  war — imagine  being 
hit  with  a  silver  bullet!  In  1857  Sylvester  Mowry, 
owner  of  the  Mowry  mine  and  one  of  the  earliest 
pioneers  of  Arizona,  was  chosen  delegate  to  Con 
gress  by  petition  of  the  people,  but  was  not  admitted 
to  his  seat.  Mowry  was  subsequently  banished  from 
Arizona  by  Commander  Carleton  and  his  mine  con 
fiscated  for  reasons  which  were  never  quite  clear. 


My  purpose  in  writing  these  memoirs  is  two-fold : 
First,  I  desired  that  my  children  should  have  a  rec 
ord  which  could  be  referred  to  by  them  after  I  am 
gone;  and,  secondly,  that  the  State  of  Arizona,  my 
adopted  home,  should  be  the  richer  for  the  posses 
sion  of  the  facts  I  have  at  my  disposal. 

I  want  the  reader  to  understand  that  even  though 
the  process  of  evolution  has  taken  a  life-time,  I  can 
not  cease  wondering  at  the  marvelous  development 
of  the  Territory  and,  later,  State  of  Arizona.  When 
I  glance  back  over  the  vista  of  years  and  see  the 
old,  and  then  open  my  eyes  to  survey  the  new,  it 
is  almost  as  though  a  Verne  or  a  Haggard  sketch 
had  come  to  life. 


120  ARIZONA'S  YESTERDAY 

Who,  in  an  uneventful  stop-over  at  Geronimo, 
Graham  county,  would  believe  that  these  same  old 
Indians  who  sit  so  peacefully  mouthing  their  ci- 
garros  at  the  trading  store  were  the  terrible  Apaches 
of  former  days — the  same  avenging  demons  who 
murdered  emigrants,  fought  the  modernly-equipped 
soldier  with  bow  and  arrow,  robbed  and  looted  right 
and  left  and  finally  were  forced  to  give  in  to  their 
greatest  enemy,  Civilization.  And  who  shall  begin 
to  conjecture  the  thoughts  that  now  and  again  pass 
through  the  brains  of  these  old  Apache  relics,  living 
now  so  quietly  on  the  bounty  of  a  none-too-generous 
government  ?  What  dreams  of  settlement  massacres, 
of  stage  robberies,  of  desperate  fights,  they  may  con 
jure  up  until  the  wheezy  arrival  of  the  Arizona 
Eastern  locomotive  disperses  their  visions  with  the 
blast  of  sordid  actuality ! 

For  the  Arizona  that  I  knew  back  in  the  Frontier 
days  was  the  embodiment  of  the  Old  West — the 
West  of  sudden  fortune  and  still  more  sudden  death ; 
the  West  of  romance  and  of  gold;  of  bad  whiskey 
and  doubtful  women;  of  the  hardy  prospector  and 
the  old  cattleman,  who  must  gaze  a  little  sadly  back 
along  the  trail  as  they  near  the  end  of  it,  at  thought 
of  the  days  that  may  never  come  again. 

And  now  I  myself  am  reaching  the  end  of  my 
long  and  eventful  journey,  and  I  can  say,  bringing 
to  mind  my  youth  and  all  that  followed  it,  that  I 
have  lived,  really  lived,  and  I  am  content. 

THE  END. 


- 


DEC  16 1916 


• 


